By Diego Morra
If the Marcos Jr. administration wants to do a good turn before the May 12, 2025 elections, it should immediately suspend all existing joint venture agreements (JVA) with an estimated 134 water districts nationwide and ban PrimeWater Infrastructure Corp. (PW) from controlling any water district from hereon.
For good measure, Malacanang should tell the Cavite provincial government, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) and the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) to just scrap PrimeWater’s bid to control the Cavite bulk water project, a P2-trillion project that seeks to monopolize all water sources in the province for the benefit of the winning bidder, which would pay NIA (which actually controls all Philippine rivers) only P1 per cubic meter of water to be supplied to Cavite residents.
PrimeWater made a bid for the project in October 2024 against the group of Manny Pangilinan, which needs Cavite’s water to supply its consumers in southern Metro Manila. The Cavite project is a big one as it would harness water from 18 Cavite rivers to be purified for distribution as potable water. For a time, the Lucio Tan Group also mulled venturing into the bulk water project in Cavite but reports showed that the taipan has hit paydirt somewhere in Rizal, with his property literally drowning in water.
While Malacanang said it wants to investigate PW for poor water service in San Jose del Monte City, which had 651,813 residents in 2020 and 261,740 voters in 2022, Bulacan officials have argued that PW’s JVAs with other water districts in the province like those in Malolos, Meycauayan, Marilao, Plaridel and other towns might as well be terminated. Vice Governor Alex Castro said hundreds of thousands of Bulacan residents have condemned PW, and many of them have asked the Senate to investigate PW and the Villars, asking why PW keeps on earning millions from consumers while their joint partners are losing. In the case of the San Jose del Monte, PW netted P1.8 billion while the water district lost millions, prompting the Commission on Audit (COA) to question why the water district loses while the Villars amass huge profits.
The Villars admitted that water supply in higher sections of the city suffers immensely, with dirty water running in the faucets between four and six hours a day, roughly the same period of water scarcity that hapless residents in Dasmarinas City, Cavite, suffer under the bad service of PW. Other towns served by PW like Silang are also grumbling why they have to pay for water through the nose when the Villar could not provide continuous water service. Subic residents are also up in arms against the Villars as PW’s control of the local water district has led to frequent service interruptions.
In Subic, Cavite, Bulacan and in Bacolod City, the same problems persist, even as PW muscled its way by exploiting legal loopholes of the so-called Public-Private Partnership (PPP) law and the excuse offered by PW itself that local government units (LGUs) cannot meddle with the JVAs, an interesting view considering that the officers of water districts are appointed by LGUs. It is not known if Bulacan residents served by the San Miguel Corp. (SMC) through its P24.4-billion Bulacan Bulk Water Supply Project are also complaining. Stranger still, water districts are supposed to be supervised by LGUs or the LWUA but some legal gatekeepers argued that the LWUA cannot read, assess or criticize the JVA itself, which may contain provisions that subvert the very interest of the water consumers.
The magic surrounding the expansion of PW during the unlamented Duterte Sr. administration may be gleaned from the fact that the operations of water districts fell within the ambit of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH.) It is no small accident that the Mark Villar was appointed DPWH secretary in 2016. The Villars were said to be generous donors to Duterte Sr. Thus, from 2016, bureaucrat-capitalism became the rule, with a Villar controlling PW necessarily beating the daylights out of rivals, in they have any, as another Villar controls the fate of the water districts. The Villars now firmly control 134 water districts out of 493 in the entire country. In Calabarzon, PW controls 10 of the 13 privatized water districts and all of them are peeved at their water supplier. PW had expanded its control of water districts through the only office that meddles with all government activities and gets away with it—Malacanang.
This explains why 143 local water districts caved in, with bigger political forces working to pressure local officials to accept the uniform JVA that the Villars were offering. The Villars found a milking cow in the water districts, which would have to shell out their cash to pay the loans incurred by PW. Did PW build septage facilities, new distribution systems and water purification facilities to ensure that the water they supply is potable? Judging by the kind of water that is crepuscular, the color of takipsilim when night meets day, PW simply didn’t bother building them. #