Original sin

It won’t quickly bring back the nice flow of water in our faucets in the service area of the Ayala-owned Manila Water Company. But trying to fix the blame is still a useful exercise if we learn from the uncovered mistakes.

This dry spell is clearly Ayala’s fault. They miscalculated, maybe became a bit greedy by selling more water than they have. But the fact remains that no significant new water source had been developed since privatization of the service.

Whose responsibility is that? From the evidence, I believe it is government that has been remiss. They insisted on retaining responsibility for raw water development, but did nothing. That’s the original sin.

The basic document prepared by the IFC on the MWSS privatization indicated that “By 2019, it is estimated that 40 percent of all raw water could be supplied from outside the Angat system.” The same document expected Laiban dam with 2950 MLD to be online by 2009.  Laguna de Bay should be supplying about 700 MLD. Only in our dreams, it turns out!

Mark Dumol, a former senior official of DPWH who worked on the privatization project, wrote me a letter reproduced in my column (“Did P-Noy accept excuses for infra lag?”, Philippine Star, June 26, 2013) correcting my impression that it was the intention to have government responsible for developing new water sources.

Mark wrote: “Without any doubt, the original intent of the MWSS concession agreement was that all aspects of the provision of potable water, from raw water sourcing to treatment, to distribution, would be the responsibility of the concessionaires.”

Mark wondered: “Why has the MWSS voluntarily decided to take on this obligation which would require it to seek huge financing, hire a lot of staff for a Project Management Office, design and bid out the projects, and then deal with big contractors and consultants? One can only guess why.”

Romeo Bernardo, the FVR-era finance undersecretary who also worked on the privatization deal, wrote that in trying to refresh his recollection, he consulted Dr. Lito Lazaro, an MWSS official also involved with the privatization details.

According to Romy, Dr Lazaro said “in my mind it was clear that raw water development is the responsibility of the concessionaires. How can the concessionaires be held to their targets if they are not responsible for the raw water development, since complying with the targets assumes that water is available?”

But somehow, through the years, everyone including the concessionaires thought the agreement left the raw water sourcing development to government.

One technocrat observed:

“It has probably been 20 years that the implicit agreement among MWSS, the MWSS-RO and the concessionaires is that the responsibility for providing raw water is held by MWSS. I think that it will be difficult to reverse this, especially because there are too many vested interests, especially at MWSS, who wish to keep the status quo…

“The problem is that while this was clearly the intent of the agreement to make the concessionaires responsible for this, it was never explicitly stated in the CA. This was only implied because the concessionaires had their service targets and would not be able to meet these if they did not control the entire water process – how can the concessionaires meet their targets if they had treatment plants and a distribution system, but no raw water?

 “If one looks at the CA in its entirety, it is implicit that MWSS does not have that responsibility – how can MWSS be responsible for financing raw water sources (which typically have huge capital costs) when MWSS has no income, other than the relatively small concession fee from the concessionaires?

“The only way is that the national government would guarantee the MWSS debt, but this is not consistent with the whole rationale behind privatization, a large part of which was the reduction of the fiscal burden of MWSS on the government…

“But why, after more than 20 years, has MWSS not built a single raw water source? This goes back to the reason why MWSS should not have this responsibility in the first place – MWSS has no income…”

No wonder even the current MWSS-RO head said government has to share the blame for the current water crisis. It is wrong to say privatization failed.

I am amazed how some people can call on government, our usually incompetent government, to take over water distribution operations from Manila Water and Maynilad.

I still remember the bad old days. I lived in an area of Metro Manila where we only used to get water less than five hours a day… sometimes in the wee hours of the morning only.

We needed two big drums as water tanks and a water pump. When Ayala took over our area’s water services, things changed for the better. We now get water 24/7 and the water pump broke down from disuse because water pressure is now strong enough. The price per cubic meter is also lower than when government was providing the non-service.

I sure do not want to be back in the tender mercies of government officials running MWSS, who are appointed less because they know about water services, but more as sinecures for having been loyal to the president.

The next order of business after water supply normalcy  is restored is to get that Kaliwa dam going. At this point, it no longer matters that the Chinese will build it.

Let’s stop the never-ending arguments and get that built or suffer consequences.Water is life.  

Resort emergency medicine

 Tagaytay Highlands wrote to clarify something I wrote in a previous column.

It is good to know that they have an Emergency Quick Response (EQR) Program readily available for Club members and guests. With the EQR program, the club can promptly and properly respond or react to medical emergencies with its sophisticated dedicated ambulance and well-trained medical team.

While on stand-by is the ambulance or during conveyance to the affiliated hospitals (St Luke’s Medical Center, Makati Medical Center, Capitol Medical Center, The Manila Doctors Hospital, The Medical City), patients under the club’s EQR Program are assured of available life-saving equipment such as cardiac monitor, defibrillator, vital signs monitor, oxygen, suctions machine apparatus, immobilization and patient transport devices, among others, including a medical team with emergency response training.

Thus for the record, Tagaytay Highlands says no member or guest, to date, has died within the estate because of inadequate medical facility.

Thanks for the information. I am happy to stand corrected.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco