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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.—Mark
Twain (1835 - 1910)
Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by
fusion power is ancient. It’s called rain. —Michael
McClary, as quoted by Megan Anderson, USGS
IT’S
funny that the government is thinking about having
“emergency powers” to address the water-supply shortage
in Metro Manila. It’s as if the government could force
the rains to come by fiat or presidential signature.
Government bureaucrats could probably do the rain dance,
but these actions are more likely to attract lightning
than the rains that we sorely need to fall over La Mesa
dam.
The fact
is that the availability of water is first and foremost
a question of supply: the coming of the rains,
infrastructure, and the ecology that supports the entire
water-generation and -distribution system. Not any
amount of legislation, especially shortsighted ones, or
executive fiat could change that fact.
The
government, however, could manage demand through
economic instruments to change people’s behavior on how
they use water, thereby alleviating our water-supply
concern. The structure of the country’s water-supply
system lends well to the use of economic instruments,
say, a variable charge.
Metro
Manila’s water supply is taken largely from Angat dam,
where our capacity to store water depends on the weather
pattern. We usually have distinct wet and dry seasons,
and we take advantage of this by storing significant
volumes of water during the rainy season, especially
July and August until December, to make sure we have
enough to cover for the low rainfall months from March
to June. We are practically saving water during the
rainy days for the sunny days.
Smart
move, right? Wrong. The sad fact is that while we are
trying to store water in those dams, public policy
allows us to freely use water from the tap to bathe our
cars, fill our swimming pools, water the lawns and flush
the toilet without serious consequences on our finances.
Why?
It’s because water here is so cheap; we have the
cheapest rates in Asia, and that’s because the pricing
of water this side of the Pacific doesn’t take into
account the cost of drawing raw water coming from Umiray
River, and the dams in Angat, Ipo and La Mesa.
Water
charges here cover only the actual consumption, currency
adjustment, environmental charge, sewerage and the
value-added tax. When water is so cheap, people feel
it’s so abundant that they tend to waste it. No wonder
many people don’t bother to fix their faucet or mend the
leaks. Nor do they bother to report the leaks to
Maynilad or Manila Water when they see a pipe leaking in
the streets.
But
generating and bringing that water to every household in
Metro Manila is not cheap. In fact, we probably have
among the most expensive ways of generating, storing,
processing and distributing water compared with our
neighbors like Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam. In these
countries, what they do is tap directly the mighty
Mekong River, process the water and distribute it to
city residents.
In
contrast, the Philippines has to invest in a network of
dams, tributaries, reservoirs, aqueducts and treatment
facilities prior to bringing them to the cities through
the pipes, mostly through loans from abroad. But we
still have the cheapest water compared with these
countries because we don’t reflect the true cost of
generating and distributing potable water. And it’s such
an inequitable arrangement because Filipinos at large
are paying for those loans while the major beneficiary
of those investments is urban Metro Manila.
Solution? Economic instruments, say, a variable charge,
that reflect two considerations: first, the cost of raw
water and, second, the cycle of abundance (the rainy
season) and scarcity (summer months) throughout the
year.
In
simpler terms, instead of charging a fixed rate per
cubic meter throughout the year, the government may
consider a relatively low rate during the rainy season
or when the dams are full or overflowing. And as the
water level in the dams goes down, the rate per cubic
meter should go higher, thus reflecting the true and
increasing scarcity of water supply.
This
way, people would start modifying their water-use
behavior as they feel the increasing scarcity. To save
water and cash, they are also going to make sure their
faucets don’t leak. Knowing that “unaccounted water” is
going to be reflected in everybody’s water bill, they
are likely to be watchful about water pilferage and
leaks in their communities. Many of them might even
consider investing in cisterns for storing water
collected from their roofs.
The
government, however, may have to calibrate water charges
carefully, as extremely high rates may also drive more
people into digging deep wells that could wreak havoc on
groundwater sources and the environment in general.
Right now, environmental scientists are blaming
excessive drawdown from groundwater sources, thus
causing saltwater intrusion in many parts of Metro
Manila.
It is
important to reflect the true cost of water, for
instance, to include the generation of raw water and the
development of future water sources, because of the fact
that the population of Metro Manila is growing. The
extra money collected could be invested in new sources,
infrastructure and water-resources research to meet the
growing needs of the metropolis.
This is
important because at the rate the services sector is
growing, it’s likely that Metro Manila will continue to
attract more migrants, thus the ever-rising demand for
water. If policymakers won’t be creative in their
policymaking, we will just keep on suffering water
crises year in and year out. |
