Manila Water has declared a consolidated net income of ₱5.5 billion for 2019, which is lower by 16% from 2018 figures. This has been anticipated considering the challenges the company faced last year, with the East Zone concession severely impacted by the water supply shortage in March. The decline in La Mesa dam water levels caused water service availability to drop significantly, with La Mesa dam reaching its lowest level at 68.5 meters in April 2019. To assist severely affected customers, Manila Water implemented a one-time Bill Waiver Program. In July last year, raw water allocation from Angat Dam hit its lowest, with releases limited to 35 cubic meters per second for the MWSS Concessionaires. To mitigate the impact of low raw water supply, Manila Water pushed for network efficiency to maintain service availability, with at least 7 pounds per square inch (psi) of pressure, enough to reach the ground floor level, enabling it to serve more than 7 million people in the East Zone with safe and reliable water supply, covering over 1.3 million households and with more than 5,000 kilometers of network pipeline.

Likewise, Manila Water affirmed its wastewater commitment of providing 32% coverage of the East Zone by 2021. Wastewater coverage in the East Zone is now over 30 percent, equivalent to 2 million people served through nearly 400 kilometers of laid sewer network. This is a significant increase from only 3 percent coverage when Manila Water took over operations from MWSS in 1997.

Considering these factors, costs and expenses for the East Zone for 2019 increased 32 percent to ₱6.3 billion, mainly driven by the ₱534 million penalty imposed by MWSS and additional service recovery and operations costs. In all, the Manila concession’s net income for the year was at ₱5.1 billion, a decline of 22% from 2018.

Rene Almendras, Manila Water President and CEO looks back at 2019 with deep appreciation for the company’s employees and partners. “We are thankful for the untiring efforts of our employees and continued support of our stakeholders throughout the challenges last year. Their trust and dedication are solid proof that foremost of our commitment is providing service to our customers even in the face of overwhelming obstacles beyond our control.”