The Philippine Online Chronicles

“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink."

That line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” I believe, sums up best what many in the city have been going through lately, especially the past days when, in spite of the rains, there seem to be not enough of the precious liquid to go around.

Last week, when I started writing this piece, 50 percent, or roughly two million of Maynilad's customers were getting fewer and fewer drops from their faucets. Believe it or not, those were the lucky ones. Some places in the metropolis have been waterless for weeks, and have yet to see a single drop come out of their already rusting faucets.

It was a nightmare scenario that, a few decades ago, would have been hard to magine, given the frequency of typhoons in these islands. Truth is, I can’t recall a time in my younger years when the city went through a water crisis as severe as the one we’re having. Water was aplenty and supply was the least of the government’s problem then. However, El Nino, overpopulation and the continued mismanagement of water resources have all but turned what used to be just a bad dream into a reality, and the days of seemingly unlimited water supply is now slowly, but surely, fading into history.

And yet, in spite of the continued warnings from the experts, and amidst the daily scenes of people lining up for their daily ration of the precious liquid, the newly installed government of P-Noy still refuses to either acknowledge or declare a state of emergency. It’s still far from being a calamity, they say.

Two million residents without clean, potable water… shouldn’t that number have given them a hint already? Or maybe they were still in a state of denial…

Well, you might say that at least the powers-that-be from both the government and the water companies urged Manila’s thirsty and smelly residents to conserve water --- as if that’s gong to make any difference, given that a certain segment of the population get its daily dose of tap water, free of charge, from illegal connections.

Funny to think that a little less than a year ago, everyone in the metropolis (and indeed, even in the nearby provinces) were praying to all the saints they could muster by memory and to whoever else is listening in the high heavens for the rains to stop, especially after Ondoy dumped two months’ worth of fresh water in just six hours on the metropolis --- enough to inundate a large part of the city under 10 to 15 feet of raging floodwaters. Well, they say that we should be careful what we wish for because we might just get it, and indeed, the saints up there listened, and we got our wish --- we (or at least, we unfortunate souls who live in Metro Manila) are now in the midst of the worst water-related crisis ever to hit the country.

Funnier is that everyone is now praying for an Ondoy-like downpour to replenish our slowly drying reservoirs --- Angat Dam in particular. Perhaps the saints --- who I believe are getting pissed at our seeming lack of resolution (rain? or no rain? C’mon make up your mind!) --- got together and decided not to listen this time, at least to jolt everyone out of their complacency.

This country may be blessed with natural resources (yes, including the precious agua) but it’s not unlimited, nor is it easily replenished. For years we were led to believe we are the blessed ones; our country’s location, being right smack on the main highway of tropical storms heading up north meant that there would always be plenty of water to go around. How wrong we were in assuming this.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that, as the city grows in size, the increase in population naturally follows. Fact is, we now have twice the number of Filipinos living in urban Manila than we had 20 years ago --- no thanks to the unusual spike in our birth rate during the last decade and the continued migration of fortune-seekers from the rural areas.

More people means an increase in water usage, and given the Pinoy’s obsession with cleanliness, the two main sources of life-giving liquid (Angat and La Mesa) could hardly cope with the ever-growing demand for clean water.

Any good urban planner would have foreseen this trend and planned for it, and yet the bright boys from the administrations past and present did nothing, and continue to do nothing save for the yearly reminder for each and everyone to do their share in conserving water as soon as the summer months step in. We may be a land of plenty but we sure suck at managing and conserving our resources.

Curiously, while everyone in the metropolis continues to suffer yearly from water shortages, especially during the hot and humid months of March and April when water usage is at its peak, a solution which, for some still unexplained reason the government refused to acknowledge, has been under our noses all along: the Wawa Dam in Montalban, Rizal.

Neal Cruz of the Philippine Daily Inquirer has been writing about this viable source of water east of Manila for the last 13 years. Unfortunately, he was, in his own words, “a voice lost in the wilderness.”

“The MWSS itself tells us that Wawa is good for at least 50 million liters of water per day (MLD). That is enough to fill up the expected shortage this summer, but for some strange reason, the MWSS and the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) refuse to allow, for the last 13 years, San Lorenzo Ruiz Builders, which owns the water rights of Wawa, to harness it and start water flowing again to La Mesa Dam only four kilometers away. San Lorenzo is willing to spend for it;  the government will not spend a single peso, but our water agencies play deaf and dumb, other media outlets play deaf and dumb, and Malacañang has been playing deaf, dumb, and blind.”

In case you’re wondering, Wawa Dam used to be the city’s main (and only) source of clean water. It was constructed by the American colonial government in 1909, and was decommissioned in 1968 after Angat Dam became operational. For more than 40 years, this water reservoir had all been but forgotten, and has only recently been seriously considered (along with Laguna Lake) as an additional source of water for the city.

So why did the government tune out all those years while Juan continued to suffer from water shortage? Well, based on this more recent article by Neal Cruz, there seemed to be a concerted effort by both the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage Systems (MWSS) and the National Water Resources Board to give the water rights of the old dam to Maynilad. Yes, the same utility company that only recently admitted to a staggering 53 percent water loss, mostly due to pilferage and leaks that, were it not for the dire situation at hand, would have been left unrepaired.

How about that? While the “Gods” at MWSS quibble on who gets to manage what is probably the remaining lifeline for the city in times of need, we poor shmucks continue to suffer in silence, as we worry about the prospect of another waterless day.

Anyway, summer’s over and the El Nino phenomenon is nearing the end of its cycle, and the rains --- which unfortunately have been missing their target lately --- have made their presence felt in the past few weeks, thus adding a few niggardly inches to Angat’s water level. So who says this country is drying up? In a few months time, when the water level in Angat hits its mark, all of this will be history, and once again our dear leaders will have forgotten that we were this close to having the first ever water riots in our city. All's well that ends well… until next summer.

___

Forty-something and single, the author has long detached himself from the corporate world where, for nearly 20 years, he used to work as a sales and marketing executive for a well-known clothing manufacturer. Since 2002, he has been doing free-lance consultative work in the same capacity during his corporate years. Writing, on the other hand, was a hobby he indulged in five years ago when, out of boredom, he started writing down his thoughts in a blog, which continues to this day.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites