Senate President Sotto, Senator Grace Poe, honorable senators of this committee, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, magandang umaga po.

Nagpapasalamat po ako sa ating Senate President Sotto, Madam Chair Poe at members of the Senate para sa pagkakataong ibinigay ninyo sa akin upang linawin ang mga pangyayari simula noong March 6, 2019, bakit may Supply Deficit, ano ang mga solusyon at kailan maibabalik sa normal ang serbisyo sa nasasakupan ng Manila Water.

Your honor, through you and through help, please convey to your constituents who are also the customers of Manila Water in the East Zone of Metro Manila … I am seeking forgiveness from your constituents and I am holding myself fully accountable for the sudden drop in our 24/7 service level to your constituents whom we have consistently served well over the past 21 years with 24/7 water availability and sufficient water pressure.

Nauunawaan ko rin po ang galit ng inyong constituents sa amin at sa aming paglalathala ng mga anunsyo ng water service interruption na hindi tumutugma sa aktwal nilang karanasan, lalo na po sa mga matataas na lugar at bandang dulo ng barangay.

Your honor, with your permission, this is what happened last March 6, 2019…

On March 6, the La Mesa Reserve breached the critical level of 69 meters which prevented us from getting 150 million liters per day from the La Mesa Reserve as the level of water went below the lowest opening it could flow into to reach our water treatment plants in Balara. This additional 150 million liters per day is important to augment the 1,600 million liters per day contractual allocation we get from the Angat system. Without this additional 150 million liters per day of untreated water from the La Mesa Reserve, we cannot fully serve the peak demand, at sufficient pressure, of your constituents. To visualize the scale of 150 million liters per day, it is equivalent to 15,000 tankers making one trip a day carrying 10 cubic meters. We cannot source any more supply from our system losses which has already been brought down to 12% from a high of 63% when we inherited the East Zone concession of Metro Manila in 1997.

Your honor, on March 6, nawala po ang 150 million liters per day na dati naming inaasahan at nagkaroon kami ng 9% Supply Deficit.

Mayroon po kaming mga contingency plans to plug this Supply Deficit at mayroon din po kaming contingency plan when the La Mesa Critical Level of 69 meters has been breached.

We had programmed plans to reduce the dependence on the La Mesa Reserve like taking water from the Laguna Lake through our Cardona Water Treatment Plant Project, re-activation of decommissioned deepwells and developing new deepwell sources but we were met with technical issues and implementation delays.

We had also planned operational adjustments in case we cannot withdraw anymore from the La Mesa Reserve. With a Supply Deficit of about 150 million liters per day, the main idea was to spread this now more limited supply to the same customer base by reducing the pressure in the system. This was implemented as the level of La Mesa came close to the critical level of 69 meters.

Your honor, eto po ang nangyari ng ipatupad namin ang aming Supply Deficit Contingency…

When the initial service advisories were issued a few days from the time the Critical Level was breached and with the high awareness on the declining La Mesa Reserve water level due to published warnings, your constituents in both initially affected and not yet affected areas began storing water to prepare for the anticipated service degradation. This unpredictable demand profile upset the planned refilling schedules of our 28 network reservoirs and stressed our 20 pumping stations. This snowball made it difficult for us to be accurate in our subsequent service advisories. To arrest this snowball, we had to take control immediately.

Last March 14, we implemented a more widespread water interruption plan to allow our network reservoirs to refill properly and our pumping stations to stabilize. The results have been encouraging beginning March 15 as we have heard from some of our guests here. From a low availability of 70% water availability in our coverage when the supply shortage happened, we have improved to more than 80% last March 15, but we have to qualify what 80% means. Water availability, we define at the moment, is having about 8 to 12 hours of water reaching the ground floor of homes. As of yesterday, and using this new lower standard, we have reached 90% water availability level in our coverage area. From a high of about 61 barangays with no water, who were dependent on the schedule of our water tankering operation, with the help of a lot of LGUs, Red Cross, BFP, and a lot of other people. But we still have 11 barangays with no water, where tankering and network solutions are being done. Our target is, by the end of this month, to reach 99% of our coverage area using this ground floor level standard so that we could spread the limited supply.

Your honor, through you, we seek your constituents’ understanding as we continue the discipline of properly refilling our 28 network reservoirs and reliably operating our 20 pump stations. Service interruptions are still necessary to achieve these and our water availability goals.

Last March 14, our Cardona Water Treatment Plant started delivering 24 million liters per day of treated water to the towns of Binangonan, Angono, Baras and Jala Jala. We are working to get our deepwells up which will progressively deliver up to 40 million liters within April, rising to 50 million liters per day in June.

We have also updated our existing Water Supply Masterplan and have incorporated the fresh inputs from this serious incident to ensure we will not experience a free fall in our service quality next summer.

Throughout this water shortage situation, we have been updating and working closely with MWSS led by its Chairman, Judge Franklin Demonteverde, Vice Chairman and MWSS Administrator Gen. Reynaldo Velasco and MWSS Chief Regulator Atty. Patrick Ty.

Maynilad has committed to provide 50 million liters per day of cross border flows. 2 million liters per day will be delivered today, rising to 32 million liters by April 10 and ultimately, 50 million liters per day by June 14.

With these efforts, our 9% Supply Deficit will go down to 4.5% in April and further go down to 1.5% supply deficit in May before getting totally eliminated in June.

Madam Chair, your honor, we would like to inform you that we express our deep gratitude to President Rodrigo Roa Duterte for his clear instructions to give top priority for the use of water coming from Angat this summer to serve the needs of your constituents.

Your honor, gusto ko pong pasalamatan kayong lahat kasama ang napakaraming nagmamalasakit at dumadamay sa inyong constituents habang ang ating concession ay nasa Supply Deficit situation. Nagpapasalamat din po ako sa mga Cabinet Secretaries, National Agency Heads, Congressmen, Governors and Mayors, Councilors, Barangay leaders, our Kasanggas at volunteers sa mabilis at walang humpay na pag-ayuda sa inyong mga constituents.

Your honor, bagama’t mababawasan ang Supply Deficit sa mga susunod na linggo at buwan, may kakulangan pa rin po sa buong summer at dahil dito, manunumbalik lamang ang dating mataas na antas ng aming serbisyo sa katapusan ng summer.

As President of Manila Water, I have already given instructions to my team to explore ways to provide some relief in the water bills of your affected constituents during the periods of service interruption. We will discuss this with our regulators and we will update this Committee on the progress of this initiative.

We will fully cooperate with the MWSS Regulatory Office as they review our performance during this incident period against our service obligations particularly in providing 24/7 service. This process is clearly spelled out in Section 10.4 of the Concession Agreement.

Madam Chair, as concessionaire of MWSS with a mandate of treating and distributing water to your constituents, we also appeal to all concerned to firm up the development of new water sources so we, as concessionaires, will have enough raw water supply we can treat and distribute to your constituents.

Some quarters may say that we have been remiss in the past weeks, but we have not been remiss in jumping up and down to advocate for new water sources for many, many years.

In 2012, we submitted a business plan to the previous MWSS administration which carried many proposals for new water sources. As we all know, we were locked into arbitration, and the approved business plan only came out in May of 2015.

There has been a lot of relationship between crisis and Manila Water. Manila Water was born 21 years ago because of a water crisis. Let the Manila Water crisis today be the catalyst for all of us to stop blaming each other and for once, work together for a really serious effort on an implementable 50-year water security master plan for Metro Manila.

Madam Chair, if my resignation today will not only erase our supply deficit but also resolve to a united front to urgently build new water sources, then I would be extremely happy to resign at this moment.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

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