Mommy, I’m thirsty

In my recent columns, I started my denouement of the fictitious achievements of the Arroyo administration. Just after that, Newsweek, a highly reputed international magazine read by millions had a full page on “Asia’s laggard.” That laggard is the Philippines.

As Newsweek pointed out, Indonesia was in the same sorry state until Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took over. I never fully understood why, but the leader of a country, particularly an underdeveloped one, is critical. That leader determines the success of or failure of that nation. Hence choosing very, very carefully the next Philippine president couldn’t be more important now if we are not to be left even further behind. But let me continue.

A headline in one newspaper last week said: “BPO, GMA’s $7B legacy”. The headline in this newspaper on the same day said: “Brace for rolling brownouts, higher rates consumers told”.

Now, which do you think is her legacy? What specific actions did she take to attract business process outsourcing companies that weren’t already there? She couldn’t even get a bill through to create a Department of Information and Communication Technology that could have materially helped this industry. Estrada’s camp came out correctly claiming they’d started the BPO industry. Malacañang retracted. They might want to consider retracting all the other falsehoods too if they don’t want Mrs. Arroyo’s legacy to be based on a sham. As to brownouts, that’s because she failed to attract new investment so we must indeed brace for brownouts.

On top of that, another crisis is looming.

My doctor told me to drink two liters of water a day. I can’t stand the stuff, unless it’s got grapes or hops in it. But I shouldn’t worry because soon I’ll have a good excuse not to—there’ll be no water.

Thanks to this government’s inaction on infrastructure development, a critically needed new dam hasn’t been built. They’re still arguing over which valley to fill. So, we are stuck with only one major source—the Angat Dam, which supplies 97- 98 percent of the drinking water of Metro Manila residents. Never mind that it’s a 41 year-old dam, which means it now has reduced holding capacity, or that it sits on a major fault line. It appears that this government has never seen the urgency of having other sources of safe drinking water. Now it’s too late for this administration, it will be up to the next. And the next will have to settle in first.

So expect to go dirty and thirsty this summer, and if your parched lips still flutter, thank the Arroyo administration for its (lack of) thoughtfulness.

We are not yet at crisis level, but getting there. The National Water Resources Board, the agency in charge of allocating water in the Angat Dam, has been sounding the alarm at how dangerously low the water level is. Thanks to El Niño (extreme dry spell), the water elevation in Angat Dam has already fallen to 200.74 meters, or 7.65 meters below the required level of 208.39 meters. This is already a 6-year low for Angat. During the 1998 water crisis, Angat Dam water level was at 158.15 meters. The Metropolitan Waterworks Sewerage System projects that the water level will drop to 158.01 meters by June.

The NRWB has already reduced the raw water allocation for both Maynilad and Manila Water to 3,715 million liters per day (MLD) for January, down by 6.5 percent from 4,000 MLD in December. If no rain will fall on Angat soon, allocation will go down further to 3,024 MLD by May and June. According to Maynilad, residents living in “high areas” in the west zone might start experiencing a reduction in their water service by March.

As the Angat water level lowers, rationing will have to be implemented, and there will be hours in a day where Metro Manila residents must live without running water. Back in the drought of 1998, residents had to wake up in the wee-hours of the morning (3am to 4am) just to fill pails, even pots and pans with water, because water was cut-off during the peak hours of the day. The same awaits us soon. The situation at Angat is so worrisome that Napocor has announced that it will not be drawing any more water from Angat for power generation (consequently straining the also-critical power supply situation in Luzon that I mentioned last week).

And this, in itself, is where much of the problem is for this year. Because of the uncertain power situation, NPC drew too much from Angat. Had it, instead, been able to follow the rule curve or water protocol for Angat dam, there’d be enough water for household use this summer.

This would not be a problem if only the government had the foresight to build other sources of drinking water for Metro Manila. The studies have long been made, potential sources of water identified, and yet the government has done absolutely nothing. The controversial Laiban Dam, for instance, was conceived in the 1960s. But until now has not been built, or even started. If the government had decided to build Laiban in 1998, the year Estrada assumed the presidency, we would have a fully functional dam and an additional source of drinking water by now. So all this talk of Laiban dam as an alternate source of drinking water for Metro Manila is not new. These are not new plans just old plans buried, forgotten, revived, buried again for lack of sheer will by two governments to implement.

Strangely, Maynilad and Manila Water had originally proposed to build the dam and finance it without significantly increasing the cost of water to the customers. This proposal would have kept the water rights and eventual ownership of the water assets with the government and the MWSS. Yet the offer was never accepted. It still could be as I’m told the two companies are still willing to go ahead—so why isn’t it done?

And it is not like they do not know that summer is coming. This is the season when there is traditionally less rain, and water levels in dams fall. In 1998, amidst the El Niño-induced water crisis, the government already knew that El Niño would come again (weather experts place the cycle of El Nino every 2-7 years, with each period lasting 18 months), and everyone has acknowledged that before it gets to that situation, mitigating measures must be already in place to prevent a repeat of the water crisis. But nothing has been done. Now, with the crisis almost here, the government is resorting to the same measures it implemented in 1998 —rationing of the water allocation to MWSS and NIA, identification of the most drought-prone areas, and urging government agencies to cut their water consumption, etc.

In Australia, you can’t water your garden or even wash your car or fill your pool. The government has mounted an extensive information campaign to make people aware of the dire situation of not enough water—so conserve, conserve, conserve. Turn taps off, have shorter showers, fix leaks, don’t waste.

Here, nothing will be done until we have no water, then it will be too late. Now is the time to start a massive conservation campaign. Do it now and we just might struggle through El Niño not too badly scarred.

Water, water, every where

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where

Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night;

The water, like a witch’s oils,

Burnt green, and blue and white.

I wonder if Samuel Coleridge was presciently talking about the Pasig River. –Peter Wallace, Manila Standard Today