(An open letter to the Marcos administration, government agencies, lawmakers, and our fellow water consumers and advocates)
ON World Water Day, we, the Water for the People Network (WPN) press the crafting of legislation adhering to the People’s Water Code, which prioritizes the needs of ordinary Filipinos over private sector profit. This is to replace widespread water privatization, which has failed to ensure cheap and affordable water, unhampered access for household and production use, sanitation, and public management to ensure all these.
Since the privatization of water in Metro Manila in 1997, which was the biggest at that time, water rates have soared, yet the basic public utility remains inequitably distributed. Manila Water Company Inc. tariffs per cubic meter rose 1,043 percent from P4.02 to P45.93 and Maynilad Water Systems Inc. 577 percent from P7.21 to P48.83 in January 2023.
This is despite new Concession Agreements removing foreign currency adjustment and value-added tax charges in November 2021 and March 2022, respectively. Under the CAs, water bills are computed to ensure private water firms’ profits at the expense of consumers. We note that prior to the pandemic, Manila Water’s net income rose from P3.2 billion in 2009 to P5 billion in 2019, and that of Maynilad from P2.8 billion to P7.7 billion in the same period.
Yet water access and services remain poor for many Filipinos. In local water districts nationwide, of which 124 are in a “joint venture” with Villar-owned Prime Water Company, consumers lament high fees for murky, inefficient, and interrupted water supply.
Recent government-cited data also show that 22 million Filipinos or 21 percent of the country’s population still do not have access to safe drinking water; more than half of the population of 332 municipalities are considered waterless; around 26% of families have no access to water treatment facilities; and more than 3 million citizens are compelled to practice open defecation.
Meanwhile, we also note that urban poor communities pay more than they can afford for water—with many connected to submeters and forced to pay P60 to P135 per cubic meter. Farmers and fisherfolk also lament the lack of irrigation and the constriction of fishing waters, respectively, which affect their livelihoods.
We additionally want to underscore how the water undertakings of profit-driven big businesses undermine people’s rights. Indigenous Filipinos and other communities’ homes, livelihoods and environment are threatened by commercial water supply projects such as the Kaliwa, Genned, and Jalaur megadams in Sierra Madre, Apayao and Iloilo, respectively. Local water districts takeover by oligarch firms has also led to public sector retrenchments such as in Bacolod.
Deprivatizing and not merely consolidating or managing the country’s existing water systems would be a positive step towards solving the country’s water problems. We are forwarding the Filipino People’s Water Code as a foundation of possible such legislation and say that the principles stipulated therein and not a profit-driven framework should guide water resource management in the country.
The water code crafted by IBON and the WPN upon the right to water watchdog’s inception in 2004 invokes the principles of water being a basic human right; water being part of national patrimony and should not be subject to exploitation for foreign or private interests; water as a people’s resource allocated mainly for the people’s survival and livelihood needs and with preferential treatment for the poor and marginalized sectors; water as a public good that should remain in the public domain; giving precedence to ancestral domains in the conservation of water resources; and the promotion of community management in the conservation and development of water resources.
These principles span the following: Conservation and rehabilitation of water resources and freshwater ecosystems; Development and management of sustainable and pro-people water supply infrastructure; Reversal of privatization and water utilities being government responsibility; Effective provision of water for people’s use; Development and management of irrigation to promote agrarian reform and fresh water aquatic resources with preference for small fisherfolk; and Promotion of democratic governance in water supply management and water services.
Water for the People Network
