Water sector offers investment opportunities

MANILA, Philippines - The millennium goal of providing safe water to all Filipinos by 2015 remains daunting and will cost billions of dollars. But this will open big opportunities for private investments.

This summed up the presentations of Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) chief Eduardo Santos and Metro Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) chairman Ramon Alikpala before members of the water committee of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI).

Between the two lead agencies on top of developing potable water systems in the country, they reported providing potable water to 17.5 million in the provinces under LWUA covering 981 towns and cities, and 13.75 million in mega-Manila under the MWSS.

The MWSS estimated that the mega-city which includes several towns outside of Metro Manila has a population of 15 million, while the latest official figure on total population of the Philippines was pegged at 94 million.

Alikpala further reported that no less than 455 towns remains waterless or do not have waterworks systems that work. 

Both government officials admitted that the government alone could not single-handedly shoulder the burden of extending water systems to all households, commercial establishments and industrial plants. There is an urgent need to harness private industries to help meet the challenge.

Alikpala said that the opportunities for private investments lie in water distribution facilities, waste water or sewerage system development and management including the putting up of treatment plants and watershed protection and management.

Citing as example of private sector involvement, the MWSS chairman revealed that the single biggest supplier of bulk water in the country is the company of Senator Manny Villar. Villar, he said, supplies potable water to most occupants of the subdivisions he had built.

There are institutional and legal obstacles though that need to be hurdled if more private money is to be piped into potable water systems and waste water management facilities.

They admitted that no single agency in government regulates the use of water. In providing safe water to towns and cities alone, local governments are known to either partner with LWUA in organizing water districts which are government owned corporations or they partner wither the DILG, DPWH, DOH or on their own in providing safe water to their constituents.

This situation needs to be addressed if the government wants to speed up meeting its commitments to the United Nations which is to provide safe and sustainable water to all Filipinos by 2015.

There are now proposed laws pending passage by both houses of Congress to correct the situation.

In the meantime, there is still enough water supply, confirmed Mark Mulingbayan from Manila Water Company, Inc.

But there is a need to look at alternative sources to the Angat Dam in Bulacan which is the lone water supply source of Metro Manila, aside from irrigation requirements of provinces around it, said Alikpala. He likewise noted that the dam sits on a fault and may burst when the next big earthquake hits.