Commentary

What To Do about the Water Crisis

The water crisis takes root from an ailing socio-political and economic system that regards the Philippines as a rich source of raw materials, and a ready source of foreign exchange revenues. At the same time, we remain a fertile dumping ground of excess international capital that TNCs use to further extract super profits. Unless solutions are grounded on resolving the roots of this water problem, we may just find ourselves sinking deeper in the crisis that our government seems to be so helplessly trying to avert. 

By Clemente Bautista Jr., 
Kalikasan – People’s Network for the Environment
Posted by Bulatlat.com

It is ironic that despite the Philippines being one of the most richly water-endowed archipelagoes in the world, the government has been repeatedly warning about a water shortage because of the receding level of Angat Dam.

The following questions must be asked: Are we in the middle of a water crisis? What should we do in relation to this crisis?

In 1996, it was assessed that the Philippines is blessed with 226,430 million cubic meters (MCM) of freshwater, affording Filipinos a total supply of 975 MCM of water per day or approximately 14 cu. m. per capita per day.

Eight years year later, however, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) claims that every Filipino is now limited to access 1,907 cu. m. of freshwater per year or a little more than 5 cu. m. of water per day. This is allegedly because of an increasingly unchecked problem of water pollution and depleted water in the aquifers. The DENR points to a World Bank study, stating that of our total water resources, only 36 percent is now considered safe.

While such a huge gap in only 8 years apparently suggests a crisis, it also on the other hand points out that something is wrong with the way the government has been taking care of our environment, particularly our water resources.

If the above-quoted statistics are correct, it means that for the past right years, our water resources have been steadily decreasing.  Demand for water has been increasing at a faster rate. In terms of groundwater availability, it was found to be decreasing by 1.4 percent per year or a total of 2,500 MCM, while demand has increased by an annual average rate of 5.3 percent.

But this is only giving us half the picture. Indeed, if the DENR statistics is at all equitable, 5 cu. m. of water means that every Filipino is still more than amply provided of their daily domestic requirements for potable water. One cubic meter is equivalent to about 5 drums of water or about 1,000 liters. This is far from the reality, however.

According to the Philippine Water for the People Network, as much as 60 percent of the population are one way or another lacking adequate means to access clean and affordable water. 

The DENR, on the other hand, assesses that 30 percent of all households nationwide do not even have a faucet in their homes, relying for their water needs on rivers, lakes, natural springs and open dug wells where the water is often of doubtful safeness or potability. 

What do we think is the reason for this sorry situation?

The government’s negligible performance in environmental protection immediately comes to mind. A rapidly decreasing carrying capacity of our freshwater ecosystem is a given not because of our population’s increasing need but more so because the government continues to compromise the long-term viability of our resources by policies that auction off most of our natural resources. This even as the government just relies on external environmental funds, which are being cut back, for protecting and regenerating our environment.

For example, while the Arroyo administration prioritizes a program to revitalize the mining industry, it on the other hand suspended its reforestation program after the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) discontinued supporting such projects.

As a result, the DENR under the Arroyo administration was only able to reforest a little over 70,000 hectares of open and denuded areas, a 36 percent decrease from a similar project obtained during a much briefer Estrada administration. Worse, the government has failed to arrest rampant logging. Deforestation continues at a mind-boggling rate of 100,000 hectares per year, further degrading the country’s severely eroded forest cover, estimated to have already gone down to a more unsustainable 16 percent of Philippine land area.

Dwindling forest cover means less groundwater in our watershed. High levels of erosion result in heavy siltation of rivers and reservoirs. Remaining unchecked, these have led to a depletion of our fresh water sources. According to the DENR, most of our 154 priority watershed areas, comprising 12.43 million hectares, are considered degraded.  

Compounding the problem about the state of our water resources is the government’s avowal to continue its water privatization policy, notwithstanding the current problems that Metro Manila water consumers continue to bear. Seven years since the privatization of the water distribution facility in the national capital center, consumers still wallow with no or inadequate water, contaminated water, and rising water hikes. While the government has failed to bring the concessionaires to comply with their commitments, it chooses to bail out Maynilad Water Services Incorporated, and supports the privatization of local water districts in several towns and districts nationwide.

Another convincing argument against water privatization is the fact that it has failed to check staggering amount of water that continues to go to waste because of the inefficiency of private water companies. Thus, Maynilad and Manila Water continue to drain 2,500 million liters of water per day without this much water going to the people.

Moreover, the water privatization policy has not only been determined to be the main cause of the water scarcity afflicting majority of the populace; it likewise submits a large amount of our precious water resources for the control and appropriation of big business and transnational corporations.

A December 2002 data from the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) reveal that dam projects for power generation, administered by the National Power Corporation in partnership with transnational dam builders and foreign power corporations, comprise 56.9 percent of the total 5.69 million liters per second of water drawn from various sources throughout the Philippines. This lopsidedly compares to only about 3 percent of the same total volume of water going for domestic usage.

As large dams submerge hundreds to thousands of hectares of forest and agricultural lands, while massively diverting natural water flows and destroying in the process nature’s delicate ecological balance, in the longer term, large dams bring more harm than good to the natural environment. The WCD found out that large dams even ultimately kill the environment’s regenerative capacity, as witness the drying of rivers in most dams covered by the WCD study.    

Meanwhile, as the Arroyo government, through the MWSS, is set to put in place alternative water sources for Metro Manila, there is not an altogether unfounded fear that this will result in higher water rates and further privatization of our water resources. While price increases are expected to follow from such expensive and sometimes technologically-inappropriate projects, the greater reason to oppose such projects is because of the displacement and disenfranchisement to be suffered by more Filipinos. Not only will they be disenfranchised from drinking water due to unaffordable cost of water, but the livelihood of millions of fisherfolks in Laguna and parts of Rizal provinces will stand to lose their livelihoods with the construction of large reservoirs and the planned tapping of the polluted Laguna Lake. 

President Arroyo likes crediting her administration for putting in place the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) framework in addressing environmental concerns on water. Accordingly, this entails a “coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources within hydrological boundaries, to optimize economic and social welfare, without compromising the sustainability of ecosystems.”    

Nice words to lull us into believing that indeed something is being done to address the environment in relation to the water crisis that afflicts majority of Filipinos. 

However, the water crisis takes root from an ailing socio-political and economic system that regards the Philippines as a rich source of raw materials, and a ready source of foreign exchange revenues. At the same time, we remain a fertile dumping ground of excess international capital that TNCs use to further extract super profits. Unless solutions are grounded on resolving the roots of this water problem, we may just find ourselves sinking deeper in the crisis that our government seems to be so helplessly trying to avert.  Posted by Bulatlat.com

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