What was supposed to be a joyful Christmas celebration last year for Mary, not her real name, and her family became a stressful one when the water in their home in Dasmariñas City stopped running since Christmas Eve. Even the water they stored from previous days to wash their noche buena dishes and other needs eventually ran out the next day.
“Usually kasi pag Christmas, [umaalis] kami ng bahay para [mamasyal]. Umulan so we stayed at home lang kasi di kami makaligo,” she said. “Who would go outside without showering? So basically, the Villars ruined our Christmas.”
When they asked for an explanation from PrimeWater, the private water service provider for their district, they received only an automated response. It was only the next day when they found out through a PrimeWater Facebook post that line work from Meralco, a private electricity company, caused the interruption.
Such service interruptions are common under PrimeWater, said Mary. The corporation is a Villar-owned water service provider that distributes water products and services to 161 cities and municipalities across 16 regions, holding the majority of local water districts across the country.
Just a quick visit to this Facebook group shows numerous complaints from PrimeWater consumers.
Local water districts are usually government-owned, but 134 out of 584 districts have been privatized under PrimeWater as of this year, according to a report by Pinoy Weekly. Dasmariñas Water District said that it was privatized to “improve the water service in the city,” a reason echoed by many other districts.
But Mary said that the water service has only worsened under the Villar-owned corporation. She goes to work at 8 a.m. but PrimeWater’s service only flows from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“Kung di makapag-ipon ng tubig sa nakaraang araw, wala [kaming] panligo,” Mary said. “Ultimo tubig na panluto kailangan pang kunin sa container imbes na straight from faucet na lang.”
The privatization of public services expanded to the water sector when the Build Operate and Transfer law was enacted under President Cory Aquino. A water crisis in the 1990s spurred the privatization of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewage System (MWSS) under President Fidel Ramos.
President Gloria Arroyo attempted to solve the persistent water crisis by reducing subsidies for local government-run water services, forcing them to privatize. However, the problem remained unresolved, while prices skyrocketed from 1997 to 2007 for Maynilad and Manila Water consumers by 358% and 414% respectively under MWSS’s privatization.
Under Section 2.1 of the 2023 National Economic and Development Authority Guidelines for the privatization of government entities, such entities should only privatize “if there will be better value for money for the government.” But the opposite has happened, as local water districts in other areas such as Bulacan recorded a significant income loss after partnering with PrimeWater.
“Last year, ang report ay negative na ang kinikita ng local water district habang yung serbisyo sa mamamayan ay hindi nga gumaganda. Papangit nang papangit lalo yung serbisyo,” Mimi Doringo, secretary-general of urban poor advocate group Kadamay and senatorial candidate, told the Collegian.
Economic research group IBON Foundation and right to water watchdog Water for the People Network also argued that significant increases in water prices due to privatization make poor and marginalized sectors more susceptible to losing access to it.
For now, the government’s response to the increasing water prices is providing discounts or subsidies to poor Filipino households especially since they “have more family members, which results in larger water consumption.”
But for Doringo, subsidies do not solve the core issue of PrimeWater’s lackluster service. She instead called for the abolition of the corporation’s privatization agreements with all the local water districts it has partnered with.
“Dapat pamahalaan ang hahawak niyan at malakas dapat ang boses diyan ng taumbayan, hindi ng mga negosyante,” she argued, saying that entities like PrimeWater control the water sector and reason that poor service by local water districts justifies the need for privatization.
Pessimistic about the improvement of the corporation’s water service, Mary echoed advocates’ calls for the Dasmariñas Water District to take back control of the water sector in their city.
“Sana bumalik sa dati yung tubig like, twenty-four seven may tubig kasi malaking perwisyo yung kailangan pa naming mag-ipon para may magamit kami sa oras na walang tubig. Saka sana improvement din sa system maintenance nila (PrimeWater). [Kung] mawawalan pala ng tubig, sana i-announce nila prior,” she said. ●
