Volunteer

Be assured San Miguel’s Ramon Ang has not lost his mind. He is simply hard-nosed.

Last week, several Metro Manila mayors and the MMDA chairman himself assembled at the tycoon’s office to see how the nation’s largest conglomerate could help alleviate the flooding problem. They were clearly a desperate bunch. Many streets remain submerged and all our hospitals were filled with leptospirosis patients. Nearly all the flood control projects farmed out through the congressional districts were failing.

Yesterday, this paper headlined a story estimating that 60 percent of the hundreds of billions allocated for flood control was lost to corruption. The real toll is even worse. If a dike collapses or a substandard project fails to perform, 100 percent of the taxpayer money invested in them is lost.

Citizens lose everything. Politicians flaunt their wealth.

Corruption has become so severe the past few years that government is paralyzed in the face of calamity. Local executives have no one to turn to in these desperate times except the private sector. In his last SONA, all President Marcos could do was to shame the shameless.

Ramon Ang did not disappoint his guests. He volunteered to help solve the flooding in the NCR and adjacent provinces at no cost to the taxpayer. The offer stirred public hopes that something could indeed be done – by volunteers from the corporate world if not by a shell-shocked government.

The tycoon praised the work done by MMDA Chairman Don Artes, that low key technocrat that kept things running through this whole disaster. But the MMDA simply does not have the means to deal with the sources of the problem.

Ramon Ang has been keenly studying the flooding problem for years. San Miguel has spent nearly P3 billion dredging, at its own expense, the waterways in the NCR and Central Luzon.

Other companies donate relief goods during calamities. San Miguel is a bit more ambitious: the conglomerate is trying to solve the sources of the flooding problem., using its own resources for the public good.

In his office, Ramon Ang has loads of maps and aerial photographs showing the waterways. This is his obsession. When a river in Pampanga overflowed a few years ago, he hopped on the San Miguel chopper to investigate. He found a clogged stream causing the flooding and sent a crew to immediately clear it up.

This is what our government officials should be doing – if they were not too busy delivering pompous speeches or looting.

I have seen Ramon Ang’s maps and it seems that much of our problems boil down to one thing: stupidity.

At the bend of the Tullahan River, the waterway clogs because a school was built there. Rather than spend taxpayer money on substandard dikes, all we have to do is clear the source of clogging.

San Miguel can dredge the waterway, but local officials will have to help by clearing the obstructions in our waterways and relocating the communities. Here Chairman Artes has a central role to play.

The conglomerate offers to pay for the costs of restoring sanity.

Costly water

Iloilo City is about to make a decision that will affect the quality of life of its residents for decades to come.

The local government will choose between two competing proposals on how to deliver to consumers – and at what cost – the bulk water collected at the Jalaur River Multipurpose Project. This water impounding project was built at taxpayer expense.

There are two competing proposals on building and operating the bulk water supply: one from Aboitiz InfraCapital (AIC) and the other through a direct government-to-government arrangement between the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD).

AIC’s unsolicited offer involves building a 23-kilometer canal and a raw water intake facility necessary for the water treatment process. For these assets alone, government will shell out nearly P27 billion in “availability payments” over 33 years.

The canal will be transferred to the NIA upon completion. This transfers the maintenance and operating costs to government.

The intake facility will be transferred to government only after 32 years. By that time the facility will be fully depreciated and have little utility.

AIC’s terms are onerous. It makes it Iloilo City’s responsibility for securing a NIA permit and for selling treated water. The city government is not organized to be a water merchant.

On top of these, the proposal grants AIC the right to submit and match unsolicited proposals for renewable energy projects within the dam and canal area. This clause appears to bypass competitive bidding requirements under the procurement law.

AIC offers Iloilo a bulk water rate of P40 per cubic meter. By the time this trickles to the end-user, water will cost P80 per cubic meter. This will make it the highest bulk water rate in the whole country. Compare this to San Miguel’s Bulacan Bulk Water’s rate of P9.66 per cubic meter.

In comparison, the MIWD-NIA proposal offers to build a shorter canal at a far lower cost to government: P8.75 billion in conveyance fees over 25 years. No availability payments are required and no redundant raw water intake facility is included. After the concession period, both the canal and the 86 MLD bulk water treatment plant are returned to government.

Water rate for the consumer is projected at about P22 per cubic meter.