MEMBERS of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and Progresibong Alyansa ng Tagatangkilik ng Tubig sa Kamaynilaan (Pattak) brought holiday gift packages and Christmas lanterns as symbols of their protest against Manila Water Co. Inc.’s  (MWCI) proposal to increase rates by P14 per cubic meter starting January 1.

“This has always been the concessionaires’ gift to us—business-driven interests, thus leading to unabated rate increases. Their ambitious service projections, and other contentious areas within their rate proposal, should not be passed on to consumers, regardless of the holiday season,” said FDC campaigner Obet Belandres.

On December 4, the FDC submitted a nine-page position paper to Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage Services-Regulatory Office (MWSS-RO), stressing that the proposed rate hike is unjust and should not be imposed upon the consumers of the Metro Manila East Zone.

MWCI is currently exercising a rate rebasing which aims to review past and future expenditures and adjust water rates. This is pursuant to the concession agreement signed by the government and the private companies that won the bid for the East and West Zone concession—MWCI and Maynilad Water Services Inc., respectively.

The groups stressed that water, next to air, is vital for human survival and, therefore, access to water is one of the most basic human rights. “It is injustice to the people to be deprived of this right because of high rate as a consequence of the full cost-recovery mechanism that private water concessionaires seek and that the MWSS-RO allows,” they added.

“Aside from questionable service projections in their rate-increase proposal, Manila Water has always been maximizing ways and mechanisms to profit from their service area, East Zone. One of these is the income-tax holiday that they acquired until  2006, not to mention other collecting mechanisms such as the Extraordinary Price Adjustment  and Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment,” Belandres said.

FDC has vowed to continue exposing and opposing any means 0f the concessionaires to pass on unjust water rate increases to consumers and violations on the human right to water in the upcoming days, putting emphasis on popular education to expose the concessionaires’ profit-driven actions.

Workers, transport groups stage strike

MILITANT groups urged lawmakers to prioritize and pass bills calling for the repeal of the oil-deregulation law and the P125 wage increase or face widespread chaos.

PRESIDENT Arroyo on Wednesday granted a performance bonus for all state workers this year, citing the country’s “robust” economic growth and efficient government operations that led to savings in the national government.

THE Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) on Wednesday asked six civilians to explain their presence at the Peninsula Hotel in Makati City while the group of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV was staging a rebellion on November 29.

THE Pulse Asia survey on corruption was commissioned by antiadministration personalities as a means of throwing “body punches” at President Arroyo after failed attempts to unseat her, Malacańang said on Wednesday.

President Arroyo has directed the Department of Agriculture (DA) to help bring down the prices of basic food items in line with the hunger-mitigation program of the government.

MEMBERS of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and Progresibong Alyansa ng Tagatangkilik ng Tubig sa Kamaynilaan (Pattak) brought holiday gift packages and Christmas lanterns as symbols of their protest against Manila Water Co. Inc.’s  (MWCI) proposal to increase rates by P14 per cubic meter starting January 1.

THE Sumilao farmers found an ally in former officials of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) who called on their former colleagues on Wednesday to “uphold the letter and spirit of the rules on [land] conversion.”

CLARK FREE PORT—America’s first World War II hero in the Pacific was honored with a memorial inaugurated on Monday at this free port near the site where he died in a gallant effort to save his crew and his aircraft.