Drinking water from faucet still possible in RP

SINGAPORE - In a country where rivers are being killed by pollution and fragmented policies are a threat, bottled drinking water has become a necessity for most Filipinos. The Philippines, however, can go back to the good old days when citizens drank clean, cold and refreshing water straight from the tap. It will need a coherent water policy, strong political will, and financing. Governments, especially from developing countries, should put providing the poor access to safe potable water high on their policy agendas, said Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. "Bringing water to people who most need it is the most pressing water issue the world faces today," Mr. Yaacob told visiting journalists. "To overcome that problem is to have good governance. You also need funding for this and development of human capability," he told BusinessWorld. The Philippines can learn from the experience of Singapore, a former fishing village that transformed its highly-polluted rivers into reliable water source, Mr. Yaacob said. Water from Singapore’s tap is potable. The city-state has a national water agency - the PUB - which monitors its water cycle from collection, purification and supply to treatment and reclamation. "There’s no reason for Singapore to drink bottled water. We make our water drinkable but we price it correctly so you’ll behave responsibly," Mr. Yaacob said. "We’re happy to share with Philippine authorities what we do," he added. The wealthy city-state is positioning itself as a global water hub, culling the best minds in the industry to do further research on water technology for export later to the rest of the world. It has turned a bay of seawater into a reservoir of fresh water by building what is now known the Marina Barrage, which separated Singapore’s four rivers from the sea. That project involved ridding the rivers of pollution for ten years since 1977. But replicating what Singapore did may not come easy for the Philippines. "The Philippines is an archipelago. It will take a good deal of political will," PUB director Yap Khen Guan told BusinessWorld. Water policymakers gathered here noted a growing misconception that the private sector relieves the state of the responsibility for ensuring safe water. In a December 2005 report, the World Bank noted that water sanitation in the Philippines is regarded as a "private responsibility", resulting in almost no connections to a sewerage system. It pointed out that water quality does not meet government standards, and that waterborne diseases remain a public health concern. Water regulation in the country is a "tricky problem", Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte, Jr. said. "A lot of steps taken involved political risks," he added. The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in last year’s Asia Pacific Water Forum, had said the Philippines has abundant surface and groundwater but the lack of a "coherent" environmental policy led to the contamination of 58% of its groundwater. Only about a third of Filipino river systems are considered suitable for public water supply, with pollution coming from untreated wastewater. By 2025, water availability will be "marginal" in most major cities and in eight of the 19 major river basins, the ADB said. It was not until 2004 that the Philippines introduced a comprehensive water resources policy, it added. A water official, however, said contamination can also be blamed on illegal water connections and leakages. Ramon Alikpala, executive director of the National Water Resources Board (NWRB), pointed out that water from the Angat River, Ipo River and the La Mesa Dam - Metro Manila’s major sources - is treated and tested "on a daily basis". "It is safe for drinking. Our standards are national standards," Mr. Alikpala said in a telephone interview. He argued that bottled drinking water, already a thriving business in the country, may actually be unsafe as "some of the refilling stations are below par ... because they may not have been replacing filters as often as they should, which is at least once a month". Mr. Alikpala, however, admitted that water from the treatment plants becomes contaminated when distributed through the country’s decades-old pipes. "If your internal pipes have leaks or you are in a neighborhood where you have illegal taps, then there is danger of contaminants entering the water system." Metro Manila’s water supply system is run by two private concessionaires - Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (MWSI) in the West Zone and Ayala-led Manila Water in the East Zone. The two won exclusive rights to take over the water supply operations in Manila following the government’s decision to privatize the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) during the Ramos regime. Prior to the privatization, the share of nonrevenue water, or water that is not billed due to leakage and illegal connections, was over 60%, according to the ADB. Since the takeover, water pilferage has been reduced, Mr. Alikpala pointed out. "Manila Water has been very aggressive in replacing old pipes. Maynilad also has new owners so they have been also improving their system," Mr. Alikpala said. "In the not too distant future, you may not have the same water problems, that taste and smell you get from the water from the tap." But unlike Singapore, the responsibility for water supply and sanitation in the Philippines has been shouldered by the private sector. While having regulatory and policy-making powers, the NWRB is far from being a national water agency just like the PUB. "It’s an institutional concern. We are fragmented. There are more than 30 agencies involved in water. And our role is to try to coordinate so that everybody will have the same direction and vision," Mr. Alikpala said. Under the Millennium Development Goals, the Philippines wants 86.6% of the population to have access to safe water by 2015. In 2002, water coverage was at 80.1%. Learning from the failure of the MWSS, the government has left it to the concessionaires to put up a sewerage network and wastewater treatment plant. But unlike Singapore, where the PUB has a hand as the government owns the land, the private firms can only do so much. "It’s [sanitation and sewerage] in their [concessionaires] target and in their mandate. But they don’t own the lands," he pointed out.