Statement - Making water accessible to all

Lack of water continues to plague communities and contaminated water kills thousands of people every day. People have a right to water in sufficient quantities to ensure lives, growth of economy, and well being. Governments on the other hand, have responsibilities to ensure this right.

Globally, for the past 15 years, governments have tried privatizing these services, which largely failed, especially in developing countries.

Locally, we have the Maynilad Waterworks and Sewerage Services as the concrete manifestation how privatization in the Philippines looks like. High water rates, poor services, and poor maintenance. The thrust of privatization, which is maximization of profit, has put water as a social service at the altar of money making.

In Cebu, we can see the proliferation of Big Independent Water providers: We can see big businesses investing in the water sector. We have the Abejo Builders, Mactan Rocks, Helpmate-Foremost and the Ayala's.

There is something wrong with the picture even at first glance, the unholy participation of big businesses in the delivery of social service is bane both to the governments and stakeholders.

Locally, the public, the water district, particularly the union have seen how aggressive is the lobbying effort of private water concessionaires towards government agencies and offices in their bid to control water sources and distribution these. Also, for the past months, different sectors from different municipalities and cities are organizing endeavors to assert their rights over corporate interest on vital services such as water.

With these, the celebration of world water day is both an opportunity to strengthen and widen the campaign against corporate takeover on water. It is also the time to assess the gains and failures of people's campaign asserting and protecting the inherent public interest to water.

We believe that the public sector through strong government support has a special responsibility and role. Public utilities, whether it is with appropriate technology, finance or managerial and technical skills.

The only credible strategy for delivering water and sanitation services to all citizens is through the public utilities.

We asked the government to support public-public partnerships, where the strong water utilities will support the weaker ones. These public-public partnerships (PUPs) operate on a not-for-profit basis, and rates are lower compared to public-private partnerships.

We in the Public Trade Unions understand and practice international solidarity, which means our combined experience of the many thousands of public utilities can be drawn to help in addressing the problems plaguing social services.

The workers in various public utilities have a wealth of knowledge and expertise for the global campaign to provide water and sanitation services to all.

Our celebration of the World Water Day is a re-affirmation of our campaign against privatization through a concrete and doable mechanism in Public-Public Partnerships.

We call on local governments and management of local water utilities to support this collective effort and we call on all levels of public sector workers to this undertaking, while we pledged our commitment to deliver the human right on water.

In general the celebration will re-affirm our commitment to uphold our water right by building communities that are conscious of the finiteness of water supply and of our program to make water accessible to all.

MCWD Employees Union
Alliance of Government Workers
in the Water Sector (Agwwas)