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The water crisis in Metro Manila, Philippines is the ongoing crisis that affected most of the households with a water interruption. The crisis usually occurs in dry season from March to May. The water suppliers, Manila Water and Maynilad, held responsibility for the crisis.
On March 6, 2019, about ten thousand households across Metro Manila began to lose water supplies. [1] On March 11, the water level in La Mesa Dam reached 68.93 masl, below its critical level of 69 masl. [2]
Manila Water COO Geodino Carpio cited the delay of water infrastructure projects, such as the constructions of a wastewater treatment plant in Cardona, Rizal and the Kaliwa Dam in Tanay, Rizal, for the issue. Manila Water also noted the critically low levels of the reservoir held by La Mesa Dam, its lowest level in 12 years, which the company relies on as their emergency supply of water source. [3] [1] The affected residents have to wait in queue and for the arrival of the fire truck to obtain water for basic needs. [4]
On March 20, President Rodrigo Duterte threatens to terminate the contract with Manila Water and Maynilad amidst the water crisis. [5] On March 22, 2019, it was reported that the Manila "was finally able to improve water availability to 96 percent." [6]
Due to low levels of water sources in Angat Dam and Ipo Dam, rotational water interruptions will likely to occur at any time (with the prior announcements from the water supplier) across Metro Manila. [7] Other consumers had to wake up early in the morning to obtain the water for basic needs. [8]
Since 2019, the two firms supplying water to Metro Manila and nearby provinces have been the subject of President Duterte's public rants, after they went to an international arbiter to demand the government pay ₱10.8 billion to recoup losses from rejected water rate hikes in 2015. [9] In December 2019, Duterte threatened to jail and file economic sabotage cases against officials of Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Co. Inc in what he called "onerous water concession agreements." [10]
President Duterte ordered the cancellation of contract extensions that were previously granted in 2009 by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that authorized supply deals from Manila Water and Maynilad until 2037. [11] This was the extension that succeeded the first concession agreements in 1997 under President Fidel Ramos that was set to end in 2022. [12] Duterte ordered Solicitor General Jose Calida and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III to come up with a new water concession contract that is favourable to the public and the government. He stated, "This is the amended contract, take it or leave it." [10]
President Duterte threatened economic sabotage and imprisonment, stating "I will file this. Economic sabotage and I will arrest all of them. I will let [them] taste the life behind bars." In another speech in Malacañang, Duterte questioned Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon for saying "'Oh President Duterte, do not tinker with that contract because we will end up paying so many billions of pesos". Duterte responded saying, "Senator Drilon, are you one of those who profited from that? I'm asking you. I said I am ready to get out. I am not threatening you, but if I go down, I will bring you with me." [10]
In Fifth State of the Nation Address in 2020, Duterte linked the dominance of the two water providers to his crackdown against oligarchs. He equated these firms to rich families and tycoons "taking control of the water, the electricity and power". The Ayalas own the controlling stake in Manila Water, while a company being run by Manuel V. Pangilinan is a shareholder of Maynilad along with the Consunjis. On November 26, 2019, Duterte slammed both private water firms of treating water like a commodity and not as a natural resource. "The contract is so one-sided, because if they fail to realize the profit during the lifetime of the contract or at any period, we will pay for their losses. You sons of bitches, if that is so," he said.
According to the Duterte administration, at least 12 of the contract's provisions prevent the government from interfering in setting rates, and provide generous performance guarantees for the companies. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, who is leading the review of the contracts, said public interest is the key consideration. Asked about the possible impact on business confidence, he said: "These profit-oriented foreign investments, we couldn't care less about them. What we want are foreign investments with a sense of corporate social responsibility." [13] Investors fear the water dispute could pave the way for the state to probe other agreements it deems "disadvantageous," threatening the financial viability of companies involved, James Su, Fitch Solutions' infrastructure analyst, wrote in a research note in December.
As a result, companies such as Fraport AG and Suez SA have left the Philippines since the end of 2019. This has come due to foreign investors' inherent sensitivity towards countries' reputations in honoring contracts, said John Forbes, a senior adviser of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. [13] Despite the Philippines efforts to compete with its Southeast Asian neighbors for foreign investment through luring companies to join an 8-trillion-peso ($156 billion) infrastructure program, [14] foreign investors remain uncertain.
In response, Duterte's economic managers have tried to allay such fears. Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia stated that the water dispute "is an isolated incident" that will not affect other public utilities in Metro Manila.
The water shortage saw President Rodrigo Duterte turned to Singapore for help. [15] On March 19, in an exchange with Singapore's Ambassador to the Philippines, Mr Gerard Ho, President Duterte stated "We need a lot of advice from Singapore, and I'm sure the advice will go a long way to help us solve our problem, especially water." [16] President Duterte was interested in Singapore's desalination plants, as a viable option for the Philippines. In response, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources said: "We are happy to share our developmental experience and support the efforts of our neighbours to build up their water sustainability." Currently, Singapore has five desalination plants which supplies up to 30 per cent of Singapore's water demand. [17]
Dr Cecilia Tortajada, [18] a senior research fellow at the Institute of Water Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), said: "Singapore has developed very quickly, so it has the knowledge of advanced countries but it also has knowledge of how to solve problems of developing countries, because you still have the workforce that worked (and solved problems) in the 1970s".
Furthermore, it was noted that Singapore has good long-term resilience strategies and cost-effective water security measures for its water supply. "What can Manila learn from Singapore? Firstly, long-term planning and realisation of the importance of water as a strategic resource at the highest levels of government," Dr Tortajada added. She added that the setting up of desalination plants would not be enough; that the Philippines' water problems could only be solved if all levels of government prioritised the issue.
Manila Water Company, Inc. has the exclusive right to provide water and used water (wastewater) services to over six million people in the East Zone of Metro Manila. It is a subsidiary of the country's oldest conglomerate, Ayala Corporation.
The La Mesa Dam and Reservoir is an earth dam in Quezon City, Philippines. Its reservoir can hold up to 50.5 million cubic meters, occupying an area of 27 square kilometers (10 sq mi). It is part of the Angat-Ipo-La Mesa water system, which supplies most of the water supply of Metro Manila.
The Philippines' water supply system dates back to 1946, after the country declared independence. Government agencies, local institutions, non-government organizations, and other corporations are primarily in charge of the operation and administration of water supply and sanitation in the country.
Water privatization in Metro Manila began when the then President of the Philippines, Fidel Ramos, instructed the government in 1994 to solve what he called the water crisis in Manila by engaging with the private sector. In 1997, two concession contracts for the Eastern and Western halves of Metro Manila were awarded after an open competition. The concessions represent the largest population served by private operators in the developing world. Both winning companies, Maynilad Water Services in West Manila and especially Manila Water in East Manila, submitted bids with extremely low water tariffs. The tariffs proved to be too low to finance the investments needed to improve performance, especially after the East Asian financial crisis and the devaluation of the Philippine Peso.
The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, formerly known as the National Waterworks and Sewerage System Authority (NAWASA), is the government agency that is in charge of water privatization in Metro Manila and nearby provinces of Cavite and Rizal in the Philippines. It split the water concession into an east and a west concession with Manila Water being awarded one contract and Maynilad Water Services being awarded the other.
Maynilad Water Services, Inc., better known as Maynilad, is the water and wastewater services provider of cities and municipalities that form the West Zone of the Greater Manila Area in the Philippines. It is an agent and contractor of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS). Maynilad is one of two private water providers in Metro Manila, the other being Manila Water.
Rodrigo Duterte's six-year tenure as the 16th President of the Philippines began on June 30, 2016, succeeding Benigno Aquino III. He was the first president from Mindanao, the first president to have worked in all three branches of government, and the oldest to be elected. He won the election amid growing frustration with post-EDSA governance that favored elites over ordinary Filipinos. His tenure ended on June 30, 2022.
Mark Aguilar Villar is a Filipino politician and businessman serving as a Senator since 2022. He served in President Rodrigo Duterte's cabinet as the Secretary of Public Works and Highways from 2016 to 2021, and was the COVID-19 pandemic isolation czar from 2020 to 2021. A member of the Nacionalista Party, he was the Representative of Las Piñas from 2010 to 2016. Villar has also previously held executive positions in his family's businesses.
DuterteNomics is a catch-all term referring to the socioeconomic policies of Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th president of the Philippines. A significant part of these policies include the development of infrastructure and industries in the Philippines.
Protests against Former President Rodrigo Duterte escalated on November 18, 2016, following Duterte's support of the burial of the late president Ferdinand Marcos. These series of protests are mostly conducted by progressive groups and other opposing figures mainly due to the ongoing war on drugs, the declaration of martial law in Mindanao, and employment issues such as contractual terms being applied by companies and inflation which occurred due to the passage of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law. Other causes of the protests include the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, and the shutdown and franchise denial of ABS-CBN.
The following is a timeline of protests against Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th President of the Philippines, and his policies. Issues were addressed in the protests including the war on drugs, employment issues, anti-terror law, and the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2019 in the Philippines details events of note that have occurred in the Philippines in 2019.
2020 in the Philippines details events of note that have occurred in the Philippines in 2020. The year is largely defined by the COVID-19 pandemic that caused the national economy to go into recession would continued until the state of public health emergency was lifted in the country on July 22, 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Metro Manila was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus reached Metro Manila on January 30, 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 in the Philippines was confirmed in Manila. Metro Manila is the worst affected region in the Philippines, where most cases in the country are recorded. A state of calamity and community quarantine was declared in the region on March 15.
The enhanced community quarantine in Luzon was a series of stay-at-home orders and cordon sanitaire measures implemented by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on the island of Luzon and its associated islands. It is part of the COVID-19 community quarantines in the Philippines, a larger scale of COVID-19 containment measures with varying degrees of strictness. The "enhanced community quarantine" (ECQ) is the strictest of these measures and is effectively a total lockdown.
The renewal of the congressional franchise of the Philippine media network ABS-CBN to continue broadcasting was a dispute between the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte and the media conglomerate arising on the terms and conditions of the franchise renewal agreement. Amid the controversy, the Congress of the Philippines, country's legislature, was unable to renew the franchise before its expiration date. The congressional franchise expired on May 4, 2020, as the Philippines was dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon. The next day, exercising constitutional powers, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) then issued a cease-and-desist order demanding ABS-CBN to cease all of its free TV and radio broadcasting immediately. ABS-CBN complied with the government order and shut down all of its radio stations and free television channels later that day. On June 30, 2020, the NTC released two alias cease-and-desist orders against ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Direct.
Both the national government and local governments have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines with various declarations of emergency, closure of schools and public meeting places, lockdowns, and other restrictions intended to slow the spread of the virus.
Typhoon Vamco, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Ulysses, was a powerful and very destructive Category 4-equivalent typhoon that struck the Philippines and Vietnam. It also caused the worst flooding in Metro Manila since Typhoon Ketsana in 2009. The twenty-second named storm and tenth typhoon of the 2020 Pacific typhoon season, Vamco originated as a tropical depression northwest of Palau, where it slowly continued its northwest track until it made landfall in Quezon. After entering the South China Sea, Vamco further intensified in the South China Sea until it made its last landfall in Vietnam.
The State of the Nation Addresses of Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th president of the Philippines, were met with several protests.
On March 4 and 5, Manila Water announced it would implement an "El Nino Water Supply Contingency Plan" for Taguig City, Pasig City, Marikina, Quezon City and parts of Rizal. There were no details about how many hours the affected areas would lose water, except that it would start on March 6.
