Is it true that much of Metro Manila is sinking even as we write?

It’s shocking – but, unfortunately, not surprising – to learn from the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) that more than 35 business and commercial establishments in Metro Manila have been extracting water illegally without permits. Worst of all, most of them are ignoring orders to stop.

NWRB Executive Director Ramon B. Alikpala, who’s not one to mince words and is a top-performing executive himself, revealed this to me the other day – fed up with the intransigence of the richest offenders.

In exasperation and near-despair, Alikpala said he had been issuing cease-and-desist orders (CDOs) to the erring firms to stop using their illegal deep wells which are draining and destroying Metro Manila’s aquifer, the underground bed or layer of earth, gravel and porous stone which contains the metropolis’ water table.

But while some firms complied with the Board’s orders, most of them have ignored them – especially the biggest users and abusers of all. Is this because these major firms and institutions believe they’re all-powerful and cannot be clamped down on for their violation of the law?

You’d be amazed at the roll call of the really influential "outlaws" that continue seizing underground water illegally at the expense of the environment.

The NWRB says that in effect Metro Manila is "sinking" as the groundwater supporting towns and cities in the National Capital Region and nearby provinces is being depleted at an alarming rate because of the indiscriminate and non-stop use of water wells. Less than half of the estimated 3,000 companies in the area operate legal deep wells, while the rest are believed to be pumping water illegally from underground, not only draining the aquifer but, in the vacuum created, permitting brackish or salt water to seep in from the sea.

This means that – aside from that "sinking feeling" – we all may find our fresh water supply badly diminished within the coming decade. In time, there will no longer be any potable water to be extracted. This is how serious the situation is, Alikpala points out: "Not taking strong and immediate action to save the aquifer will result in irreversible damage!"

In short, if this keeps up, the time will come when it will become difficult, if not impossible, to flush the intruding saline water back into the sea.

The NWRB has identified eight critical areas in Metro with "deteriorating water quality owing to saltwater intrusion because of excessive ground water extraction through deep wells: Maycauayan-North Caloocan; Navotas-Caloocan-West Quezon City; Makati-Mandaluyong-Pasig-Parañaque-Pasay; Las Piñas-Muntinlupa; Guiguinto, Bocaue-Marilao; and Dasmariñas, Cavite.

* * *

I’ve got the names of big offenders in the NWRB’s hit list – but I’ll give them a break (if they rush to comply and make amends) by not immediately identifying them. One is a posh subdivision where many generals and VIPs live, another a deluxe 5-star hotel, another a power firm, then a big department store, two huge shopping centers with a variety of malls in two different areas, and a wealthy foreign bank, to cite a few.

Take a powerful firm which received a "cease and desist" order from the NWRB two years ago. In a stern order issued by Alikpala last December 20, the company was reminded that as early as December 9, 2003, a letter was issued by the Board calling attention to a report on their violation.

"Two years have elapsed since the said letter," the Executive Director pointed out, "and up to this time you failed to file your comment thereof. Be it stressed that your continued appropriation of water without the necessary water permit constitutes a violation under Article 90 (j) of the Water Code of the Philippines, notwithstanding that applications for water permit have been filed."

Alikpala further underscored the fact that the deepwells being continuously exploited are located within the "critical area" (Pasig City) identified by the NWRB pursuant to Board Resolution No. 001-994 dated September 22, 2004. He stressed that the MWSS can already provide the firm’s "water requirement on a 24-hour basis as certified to by MWCI."

In sum, water is available to this company as well as to many of the other "culprits" thanks to the operation of the two private concessionaires, the Manila Water, and the Maynilad Water Services, who distribute the water supply for the faucets of over 12 million people in Metro Manila.

The NWRB only allows deep well operation where homes and establishments have no access to water from the two existing water providers.

Early last year, the Board ordered the shutdown of the deep wells in Makati’s Ayala Center for failing to control ground water extraction. While Alikpala knows that the aquifers may only be regarded as a back-up source of water for the Metropolis since about 97 percent of water requirements are provided by the Angat Dam in Norzagaray, Bulacan, he notes that "if anything happens to Angat or the supply from there is curtailed, what will Metro Manila do without the aquifers to take up the slack?" I understand we who live here will go thirsty, if not bathless – and where will we go to flush the toilets?

Water means life. It’s not a joking matter – or something to be taken lightly. And the wealthy, big offenders are recklessly wrecking the environment, no thanks to their greed, selfishness, arrogance – or, most deplorably of all, their indifference.

* * *

I read with horror and indignation yesterday’s newspaper reports to the effect that the National Capital Region Police (NCRPO) has been scouring the metropolis, raiding several places in their hunt for retired Police Capt. Reynaldo Jaylo for whom a warrant of arrest has been issued by Judge Nina Antonio-Valenzuela of the Manila Regional Trial Court, RTC Branch 28.

Why are they hunting a former police officer and a chief of the Presidential Anti-Illegal Recruitment Task Force (PAIRTF), a brave lawman who has served our people and our country honorably and at great risk to his own life on many occasions, down like a dog?

All of a sudden, Jaylo has been condemned as the Bad Guy and the villain when his recent achievements were to smash many illegal recruitment and, yes, trafficking rackets and arrest several of The Untouchables who grew fat and sassy (and had scores of cops, law enforcement agents, justice enforcement officials, judicial personnel and politicians either on their payroll or in their hip pockets).

I’m not commenting on Judge Nina Antonio-Valenzuela’s order, it’s up to the court to decide this case based on evidence presented. But by golly: an unbailable arrest on charges of serious illegal detention! From now on, no lawman will dare arrest any "suspected" illegal recruiters. There must be wild rejoicing among the providers of recruited children, male and female, exploited women, and among the pedophiles, aficionados of video-porn, and assorted perverts.

One multi-millionaire supplier of Japan-bound women boasted some months ago that he would place a P1 million fund to "crush" Jaylo. Perhaps this slick Big Boss didn’t have to spend a centavo to get this to happen. What do you think?

Then there are those who surfaced to accuse Jaylo – through some of his men – of demanding P200,000, etc. to get them freed from detention for massive illegal detention, and so forth. Sure, every enforcement agency, including the National Bureau of Investigation (the NBI has been hot on this case), has its crooks, thugs and extortionists. But as one who’s known Captain Jaylo well over 20 years, I cannot imagine Rey being less than a patriot, and an earnest, two-fisted public servant.

Sus, now that he’s "down," everybody’s trampling on Jaylo. Our friend Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has directed Bureau of Immigration and Deportation Chief Al Fernandez to put Jaylo in the watchlist and issue an HDO against him. NBI agents have raided his office and alleged other "lairs." Another friend of ours, Metro Manila Police Chief, Director Vidal Querol finds himself tasked to enforce the arrest warrant against Jaylo.

Sanamagan. Vid Querol even resorted to the pompous bromide which is one of the Templates of the gruff policeman: "He can run but he cannot hide from the long arm of the law. I know Capt. Jaylo, being a former policeman, knows the law."

Perhaps that’s why Jaylo, innocent or whatever, still hasn’t surrendered or turned himself in. He knows how the "law" operates in this benighted Republic, run or misrun by clever lawyers, and varied shysters. And there’s many a slip, twixt jail and eternity.

Any team of "arresting" officers, whether NBI (who’ve been hottest in the chase), cops, or sheriffs, realizes, we’re certain, the necessity of convincing Captain Jaylo to come in quietly. They’ve seen him in action in the past, in his long and distinguished career as a policeman and as an agent seconded to then NBI Director Fred Lim, himself one of our best of the best.

With criminals and well-armed gunmen shooting at him, Jaylo gunned them down – his arm unerring, his draw like lightning. We ought to thank the Lord his gun was in the service of our people.

Call me primitive if you will, but I don’t believe it’s right or just (or even safe) to turn him into an outlaw. If Jaylo is ultimately proven guilty, so be it. In the meantime, however, he deserves to be treated with the respect to which he is entitled, thanks to his bravery and constancy in the past.