Averting disaster

Not only are they getting fast bonuses and scandalous benefits. If reports are true, officials of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) may also be sitting on a possible solution to an imminent water crisis.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri last week pointed out in their privilege speeches that the Angat Dam is no longer a sustainable and viable source of water for Metro Manila.

We cannot continue depending on Angat Dam for our potable water. The dam has already developed cracks and it poses a clear and imminent danger to residents in Metro Manila and nearby towns and cities as it sits on an earthquake fault.

Zubiri pointed out in his speech that there are three alternatives to Angat Dam as a water supply source for Metro Manila: the Laiban Dam, Laguna de Bay and the Wawa Dam. 

Experts say that Laiban Dam would take 10 years to become operational, while Laguna de Bay is too expensive to even be considered as a viable source. Estimates show that tapping Laguna Lake will cost as high as P60 per cubic meter as against the offer of just P16 per cu. m. of San Lorenzo Ruiz Builders & Developers Inc. (SLRB), which has, since 1993, been proposing to the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) to develop the Wawa River as the alternative water source for Metro Manila.

It would only take less than a year to develop Wawa Dam. Zubiri noted that the greater part of what we now call Metro Manila depended on the Wawa Dam as its source of water from 1908 until 1968, when the Angat Dam became operational.

Why NWRB and MWSS executives have ignored the Wawa Dam proposal, despite the fact that SLRB offered to undertake at no cost to the government is definitely a question that begs for an immediate response.

The NWRB had already approved SLRB’s application in 1993 for a temporary water permit to appropriate water from the Wawa River. But when SLRB sought a permit to appropriate 40 cubic meters per second of water from the river, the NWRB only approved 3.4 cu. m. after 11 years of waiting for its go-signal. The NWRB claimed insufficient water supply for the drastic cut.

The SLRB, as expected, protested the NWRB decision, because the project would no longer be feasible with such a small volume. Citing a study by the National Hydraulic Research Center (NHRC) that there was sufficient water in the Wawa River, the SLRB sought a reconsideration of the board’s ruling.

But despite the NWRB study, the NWRB refused to give its nod to SLRB’s request and directed it instead to select from a list of the board’s accredited consultants to conduct a hydrological study. SLRB chose Technosphere Consultants Group (TCGI), which determined there was sufficient water in the Wawa River. Again, NWRB executives chose to keep the proposal in the freezer.

Worse, the NWRB sought to cancel in 2005 the company’s water rights, prompting SLRB to go to court to compel NWRB to resolve its long-standing request. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of SLRB, but the NWRB defied the court order nonetheless and instead directed SLRB to make another formal request.

While the NWRB was giving the SLRB a difficult time, it approved an application by the MWSS for a water permit for the Wawa River in just four days, despite a temporary permit granted to the SLRB for the same water source. 

In his privilege speech, Enrile revealed that MWSS eventually used the NWRB-approved permit to authorize Manila Water Company Inc. (MWCI) to charge higher water fees purportedly to fund the Wawa development project. A total of P732 million in extra charges were collected in advance for a project that was never implemented.

Up to now, the NWRB has not acted on SLRB’s latest request, prompting the latter to ask the board last Aug. 30 to act on its petition and to cancel MWSS’ water permit.

The MWSS also reportedly sought the water permit so it could secure two foreign loans for two projects when there was only one involving the Wawa River. Why the need to borrow from the Asian Development Bank when there was a water rate increase that was supposed to finance the same project?

With MWSS’ blessings, Metro Manila consumers are being made to pay for a project that never materialized.

House cleaning needed

The growing factionalism inside the Aquino administration is beginning to rear its ugly head.

Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo and his undersecretary, Rico Puno, obviously belong to warring factions.

Whoever came up with the spin that Robredo was stripped of his power over the Philippine National Police (PNP) and is therefore free of any responsibility over the bloody Aug. 23 Manila hostake-taking fiasco would be a fool to think that the people are buying this. And to make him part of the De Lima-chaired investigating committee made matters even worse.

Observers note that Robredo was quick to offer Puno as a convenient sacrificial lamb to deflect the flak coming his way.

According to Robredo, Puno did not inform him of what was happening at the Quirino grandstand. But all the secretary needed to do was turn on his television to know what was going on.

Only politicians who want to control the Aquino presidency can come up with that lame excuse intended to exculpate Robredo.

Puno offered to resign out of delicadeza. On the other hand, Robredo had the gall to sit as member of the committee tasked to pin culpability over the hostage brouhaha, when he should be among those who should be investigated.

There are talks that the President has become wary of politicians within his administration who want to ease out the idealists from among P-Noy’s circle. To this group belong the President’s long-time friend Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and, as admitted by P-Noy himself, Puno, who had been with the President even during his opposition days.

And who are these politicians who seem to have taken on a divide-and-conquer approach to destroy the President’s men? Observers say they include senators who belong to the administration but who are undermining P-Noy’s presidency by flogging a dead horse, the issue of jueteng.

Puno offered to resign not as an admission of any involvement in jueteng, but because he simply wants to spare P-Noy the trouble.

Reading between the lines of P-Noy’s statements from New York, it can be discerned that President Aquino has began to see the jueteng exposes as part and parcel of machinations by these politicians to sideline his trusted lieutenants. And the President knows Puno too much to believe the jueteng accusation being leveled against him.

Bishop Oscar Cruz admitted that he doesn’t have the evidence to back his jueteng accusations and that he was just giving government “leads.” It is also in this context that the admonition to the good bishop made by the President’s cousin, Tonyboy Cojuangco, should be taken.

The first thing that the President should do when he gets home is to do some house cleaning. P-Noy represents new politics and traditional politicians or trapos should not be allowed to smear the President’s good name, and the good things he stands for.

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