‘Water, water everywhere…

The Philippines is surrounded by water, and we get plenty of rain. But, guess what, we have a water crisis. And guess why, management or, should I say, the lack of it. Inaction by the two administrations since that of Fidel Ramos.

Joseph Estrada never touched the stuff and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo just talked about it.

In 1993, the Ramos administration recognized that a water shortage would continue to repeat itself every El Niño year and that a bigger crisis looms ahead (predictions at that time placed Metro Manila’s water critical years—2009, 2010 and by 2015 an additional 1,900 MLD would be needed). Ramos formed the Joint Executive-Legislative Water Crisis Commission and organized several water summit meetings countrywide to raise awareness on the seriousness of the problems related to the conservation, development, utilization and delivery of the country’s water assets.

But since that initial breakthrough in the recognition of the importance of water to the country’s political and economic future, progress stalled and no new major water supply project has been started. The result of this neglect and lack of foresight is the increased vulnerability of the country to weather patterns that are growing more erratic due to climate change. For instance, the El Niño cycle used to have a gap of five to seven years, this narrowed to just three years, and the Pagasa is now saying that El Niño might come more frequently every 1-2 years.

In 1998, El Niño severely affected water supply, plunging Metro Manila into a crisis. The threat of water shortage also besieged Metro Manila in 2004, and again in 2006 only to be saved by strong typhoons coming just in time to elevate the water levels at Angat Dam, the source of 97 percent of drinking water for Metro Manila residents (the Ipo and La Mesa Dams supply the other 3 percent). The Arroyo administration did nothing but talk.

This year, we have not been so lucky. In July, some 1.12 million Metro Manila residents in 177 barangays in the cities of Caloocan, Quezon and Manila had no water, or had water for only six hours, because Angat Dam receded to 157.56 meters above sea level, its lowest water level in history. The situation in Metro Manila was so dire that local government officials requested the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces to ensure security of water tankers tasked to distribute water to heavily affected areas and to guard the main water lines of Metro Manila’s 2 water concessionaires from illegal pilferage.

The root of the problem is that the source—Angat Dam—can not sustain the demand anymore. Metro Manila needs more dams. Angat is simply not enough to support the (too rapidly) growing population. So to resolve the Metro Manila water crisis, new water dams other than Angat must be built, and built now. No more messing around, no more politicking, no more arguing interminably about which one. Just decide, and build.

There are 12 proposals pending with the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, but all have remained just that, proposals. If only one of these pending project proposals had been acted upon by the MWSS, then Metro Manila would not be in the situation of water shortage that it is in today. Fortunately, rain is starting to fall again which will alleviate the immediate problem but not solve the fundamental one. Dams must be built.

On top of that, aqueducts have been allowed to deteriorate. The number of cracks in the main aqueduct that supplies 50 percent of Metro Manila’s drinking water, AQ-5, have increased over the years, causing considerable, and unnecessary water spillage that has compromised the quality and supply of water. And a new aqueduct in support of AQ-5 has not been constructed. For some unknown reason, the MWSS has not done anything about the situation even when sufficient funding was made available for it.

In 2006, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) offered a $370 million loan to the MWSS to rehabilitate AQ-5 and start construction on a new aqueduct, the AQ-6. The entire project was aimed at increasing water coverage in Metro Manila by at least 10 percent by 2009 and averting the water shortage experienced now. The loan was never tapped, and the necessary infrastructure upgrade provided under the project was shelved indefinitely.

To say that Metro Manila was a victim of MWSS’s lack of action and political will is putting it mildly.

To top it all off, Angat Dam is now fully dependent on rain because its supporting watersheds have been greatly affected by illegal settlement and logging. From 2005 to 2010, there have been 30 alleged cases of timber poaching in the 62,000 hectares of supposedly “protected” Angat watershed. This is not counting the reports that there are at least 600 illegal settlers, among them employees of the National Power Corporation that have built residential homes in the watershed over the past 20 years.

It’s not only Angat and Metro Manila that suffer from water shortage. All of Luzon’s other major water reservoirs are suffering the same fate: Ambuklao Dam, Binga Dam, San Roque Dam, Pantabangan Dam, Magat Dam, Ipo, La Mesa and Caliraya dams. Similar shortages in water supply are also being felt in Iloilo, Cebu and Davao.

This has been going on for years—without any comprehensive action from the government to address it.

On top of lack of dams, saltwater intrusion and pollution are offsetting the natural abundance of freshwater in the country. It is not like the government did not know that this is happening. As early as 1982, the MWSS conducted a study showed that if extraction of groundwater at the rate of 1982 exploitation were to be completely stopped in 1990, the quality and supply of Metro Manila’s groundwater would still not be able to recover from the intrusion of sea water due to over-extraction for several decades. The extraction of groundwater was never stopped. Instead, it increased over the years. And there has been no effort to stop the proliferation of deep wells.

Given the incidence of peace and order disturbances recently in cities elsewhere in the world where water had been scarce, water violence is not far from happening in the Philippines. In fact, an international peace-building organization, International Alert, considers the Philippines as high risk for instability as a result of water shortage from climate change. Water is a political, social and economic issue with catastrophic implications and this must be recognized by the Philippine government.

Urgent political action is needed to “climate proof” the country and preserve the existing resources we still have. To this end, the government should:

• Build other sources of drinking water for Metro Manila. Priority must be given to water dams that can be built fast, with proper consideration for quality of water and little cost to the environment. Bulk water production must also be affordable to water consumers.

• Improve the water protocol, rule curve of Angat Dam. Based on the operating rule curve of Angat Dam, water levels must be 180 meters for normal distribution of water for domestic use. However, the rule curve is based on old rainfall patterns and does not account for climate change. And it is too low, so places the quality of drinking water in jeopardy (as attested by recent experiences where consumers in Quezon City complained of “yellow” or “black” colored water from their faucets).

• Fix the water regulatory setup. The current regulatory structure has over 30 disparate government agencies and corporations and roughly the same number of laws tackling water management. Very few of these “water bodies” are talking to each other. There must be a comprehensive approach to water regulation and management.

• Decide which government agency should be the chief overseer of the water resources in the entire country and then give it proper funding. The2010 budget of the National Water resources Board of P35.98 million, simply won’t cut it.

• Campaign hard against pollution of our water systems. Metro Manila generates more than 5,000 tons of garbage per day. But only 75 percent of this is collected, with only 13 percent recycled, the remainder are just thrown anywhere, particularly in creeks, threatening human health and causing floods.

• Change the mindset—clean, drinking water is scarce, and it is not free.

With power outages, people can use charcoal, kerosene and rechargeable lamps, and get their gensets going. But there is no alternative to water, without it you die. Time for real action.

Will the P-Noy administration do that action? –Peter Wallace, Manila Standard Today