With power comes great responsibility for the Aquino administration: water.
Two days after President Aquino tackled the Mindanao power crisis during a town hall-type meeting, he is expected to issue an executive order (EO) that would abolish the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) as we know it today into a “superbody” on water concerns.
The documents are already with Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. and an EO has already been drafted, according to NWRB member Guillermo Q. Tabios III.
Tabios spoke to the BusinessMirror after announcing at a forum of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) the issuance of the EO that would organize the superbody that would be called the National Water Resources Management Office (NWRMO).
“It [NWRMO] is expected to manage water resources on a day-to-day basis, because doing so can’t be—and shouldn’t be—a one-off deal,” said Tabios, director of the National Hydraulic Research Center (NHRC).
Based on a document that Tabios gave to the BusinessMirror, the NWRMO would be morphed from the NWRB and managed by the Office of the President.
The draft EO designates the NWRMO as “mainly responsible for the management and protection of the country’s water resources for domestic water supply, sanitation, irrigation, hydropower, fisheries, aquaculture, flood control, navigation and recreation, including the enhancement and maintenance of water quality, conservation of watershed, control of water pollution and environmental restoration, without compromising the natural ecosystems’ functions and services.”
Tabios explained that all the aspects of managing the country’s water resources would be placed on the shoulders of the “superbody,” “not only planning but also operational.”
“There are so many agencies at national and local levels that develop their own policies, plans and programs, monitor water-related data, develop and operate water facilities and infrastructure, regulate resources and tariffs and other activities. Based on our studies, we believe it’s more efficient if we put things and bring all efforts together.”
Indeed, there are currently 14 government entities aside from the NWRB and local government units that have management roles and regulatory functions over water concerns.
The interim report on the “Development of the Implementation and Operational Plan for the NWRMO” that Tabios and Rosario Aurora L. Villaluna submitted to the Inter-Agency Committee on Water listed seven departments, from the environment and natural resources (DENR) to the interior and local government (DILG) and the public works and highways (DPWH).
Based on the report’s matrix of the current roles and responsibilities of these major water-related agencies, every entity undertakes policy planning and public relations, even the Department of Finance.
Nonetheless, only the DENR undertakes local development of the river-basin organization.
“Many of these agencies are sharing the discharge of common functions [that] may be complementary or sometimes in conflict with the others with limited oversight and coordination,” Tabios and Villaluna said in their report, a copy of which the former provided the BusinessMirror.
“Each of the agencies will perform functions with specific objectives, which can sometimes be in conflict with other WRM-related objectives. This kind of situation needs to be organized to effect clear, sustainable, more efficient and effective water-resources development and management.”
Muddy waters
TABIOS told the BusinessMirror that the move to have a “superbody on water” was hatched in July last year after several policy papers on water were released.
Citing these papers, Tabios said at the NAST forum on Friday that only 81.4 percent of the country’s households have access to safe potable-water supplies. Citing studies, about 18.6 percent, or about 10.674 million, of the estimated total 90 million Filipinos are “unserved” or doesn’t enjoy water-supply coverage.
This observation is supported by a 2011 study of Danilo Israel, senior research fellow of the government’s Philippine Institute for Development Studies, titled “Water Pollution Impedes Management of Freshwater for Human Consumption.”
Israel echoed a study funded by the European Union that “estimated roughly 30 million people throughout the country already do not have access to potable water through water supply and distribution operations.”
The World Bank’s “2005 Little Green Data Book” and a 2007 study by activist group Greenpeace “further noted that one out of five Filipinos does not get water from formal sources; only 77 percent of the rural population and 90 percent of those in urban areas have access to an improved water source, and only 44 percent have direct house connections.”
Citing a classification done by the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau, Israel noted that “only 39 percent of 525 classified inland surface water bodies can be considered as potential sources of drinking water for the population despite the abundant freshwater sources in the Philippines.
“It was also estimated that only 1,907 cubic meters of freshwater would actually be available to each person each year in the Philippines, making the country second to the lowest among Southeast Asian countries in terms of availability of freshwater,” Israel said, citing a 2003 study by the World Bank.
“It is estimated further that access to safe drinking water has declined from 81.4 percent in 1999 to 80.2 percent in 2004, largely because of competing demand from the growing population,” he added, this time citing a 2008 study by the Asian Development Bank.
Israel said in his report that the country’s water demand is expected to grow “from 43 million cubic meters per year in 2000 to 88 million cubic meters by the year 2025, making the competition for potable water even more intense.”
“These data appear to indicate that the country will have to work doubly hard if it is to attain the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which states that at least 86.6 percent of the population should have adequate access to safe drinking water by 2015.”
Tabios concur, saying during the forum that the MDG targets—81 percent for access to safe water and 88-percent access to sanitary toilets— “are quite impressive.”
“But the contradiction is that 64 percent of our surface water is not fit for drinking purposes, which also corroborates with the Department of Health data [from 1996 to 2000] that 31 percent of the reported illnesses are water-related diseases; 18 million Filipinos [18.6 percent] do not have access to improved water sources and that 10 million people [12 percent of the total population] still defecate in the open. Only 7 percent are connected to proper sewerage.”
Based on Tabios and Villaluna’s data analysis, they expect water deficit to happen in the Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and Central Visayas water-resources regions.
“Water-stressed cities include Baguio, Angeles, Metro Manila, Iloilo, Bacolod, Metro Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga.”
Weak flow
THE muddy future for the country’s water resource was more clearly revealed in a full-blown study last October, Tabios said, that prompted President Aquino to appoint Public Works Secretary Singson as “water czar.”
We discovered that addressing water concerns at this scale wouldn’t be possible with the current unit that is the NWRB, said Tabios, who sits at the board representing the NHRC.
According to its interim report, the NWRB, which is the lead national government agency mandated by law to coordinate and regulate water-resources management in the Philippines, “is unfortunately ill-equipped to perform all its functions.”
“With an annual budget of P52 million and a staff complement of 88 filled-up positions, it is unable to perform much of the functions required to develop and manage the country’s water resources.”
Tabios said the NWRB “has difficulties orchestrating all the agencies engaged in water-related programs.”
“The NWRB’s data on water resource assessment are very much outdated and have never been updated since 1980. They currently do not have any capacities on scientific modeling and computerized decision support systems that will aid decision-makers and planners in the optimal management of the country’s water resources.”
Tabios added that the board’s water permits cover only about 40 percent of water extractions.
“The rest are unaccounted for by numerous users.”
In addition, Tabios said the NWRB is also unable to monitor and or penalize over-extraction, even if it observes such illegal acts are committed, citing the Santa Rosa Technopark, Laguna.
“On economic regulation, the NWRB is limited by its mandate to regulate only domestic water-supply providers such as the private developers, homeowners’ associations, water cooperatives and other small water-service providers. Water districts, RWSAs and local government unit-run systems are not covered by the NWRB. All other operators that are already regulated by contract [such as those in Subic Bay, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System and others] are also beyond the scope of the NWRB,” Tabios and Villaluna said in their report.
Hence, Tabios is banking on the “reconstitution, elevation and transformation” of the NWRB into the “water superbody” called the NWRMO.
Based on the draft EO, it will be composed of a governing board, an executive management body, an inter-agency panel and a multi-stakeholder advisory panel.
Chaired by President Aquino, the governing board will be composed by secretaries of nine departments—DPWH, DA, DENR, DoE, DILG, DOST, DBM, DOF and DOJ—and the director general of the National Economic and Development Authority.
The inter-agency and multi-stakeholder panel, on the other hand, will be composed of permanent and alternative representatives at the director level of 32 government entities, led by the Office of the President (OP). The draft EO also provides for membership from private sector, civil society and other government agencies.
The setting up of the NWRMO is estimated to require a budget of more or less P1 billion for its first year of operations and about P450 million annually up to 2016 for a total of P2.792 billion.
According to the draft EO, the funds for the current year shall be acquired from the savings and/or reserves of the DPWH, DENR, DBM and the OP.
“Thereafter, the yearly budget of the NWRMO shall be allocated annually under the Office of the President.”
Tabios said that to back-stop such effort, they have lobbied for the passage of a law, tentatively titled “An Act Rationalizing the Resource Management and Economic Regulation of the Water Sector, Creating the Water Resources Management Authority and the Water and Sanitation Regulatory Commission, and for Other Related Purposes.”
He told the forum sponsored by the NAST that they expect such law gaining the nod of lawmakers before legislators go into recess in June.
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By Dennis D. Estopace
Source: Business Mirror, April 15, 2012
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