Pending bills scored as tools to privatize water utilities nationwide
DAVAO CITY, Philippines—The country’s water districts have signed a manifesto opposing the passage of two bills in Congress which they say are aimed at privatizing water utilities and increasing water rates.
Lawyer Eliseo Braganza, vice chair of the Davao City Water District’s Board of Directors, told reporters here on Monday that the manifesto signed by members of the Philippine Association of Water Districts will be submitted to Malacañang.
Braganza said they viewed Senate Bill 2997, proposed by Sen. Edgardo Angara, and House Bill 5497, proposed by Reps. Romero Federico Quimbo and Karlo Nograles, as an effort to privatize the country’s water districts.
Braganza said that under the bills, a Water Sanitation Regulatory Authority (WSRA) will be created. He added the bills also provide for the phasing out of all local water districts in the country and consolidation of all their assets. In their instead, local water supply and sanitation companies (LWSSC), will be created, he said.
He said the water utilities believed that the proposed entity and the local companies will provide an avenue for future appointed officials to turn over the most viable and profitable water districts to a private person or entity applying as service provider within a respective Provincial Water Resource Zone (PWRZ).
Francis Morales, secretary general of the militant environmental group Panalipdan, said the two pending bills will lead to the privatization of the country’s water utilities.
“There is no doubt that the creation of WSRA and LWSSC with the power to enter into Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with persons and entities to operate and maintain water and sanitation system within the proposed Provincial Water Resource Zones (PWRZ) are prelude to the full privatization of water resources and utilities across the country,” Morales said.
Rudy Aranjuez of the Davao City Water District’s employees union said the privatization of water utilities “will aggravate the burden of the consumers in the face of economic difficulties.”
