The government has been focused on pleasing America, giving it another four bases in addition to the previous five in exchange for $100 million. Those idiots in the defense department are peddling the idea that this will protect us from external enemies that we do not have. They are falling into the childish naïveté that China will invade Taiwan as peddled by the western propaganda machinery.
Remember when the Maute ISIS mounted the siege on Marawi? Where was the promise of support? Then President Rodrigo Duterte ordered an emergency procurement of arms from Uncle Sam but was turned down.
But what really is the veritable problem we are currently facing? Summer has just set in and we are not only hearing the murmur of discontent but fear the heat wave will drain the various dams in Luzon which supply drinking water to the National Capital Region.
MWSS, the water regulator, its concessionaires, and the business and private sectors have raised an urgent call for a reforestation drive. It is praiseworthy, but it’s too late to avert the emerging threat of a waterless Metro Manila.
MWSS and the concessionaires should absorb lessons from the Davao City Water District which is run by forward-looking members of the board and its management.
DCWD decades ago looked for alternative sources of water, noting the rapid increase in the population of the city and worried the groundwater might be diminished due to over-extraction. They decided to tap the surface waters of the Tamugan and Panigan rivers, some 70 kilometers from the city proper at an elevation of about 650 meters above sea level.
The officials of the water utility applied for water rights to the twin rivers from the National Water Regulatory Board. This was granted outright.
Thereafter, DCWD wasted no time embarking on a reforestation drive dubbed “Adopt a Site.”
In a parallel move, the water utility established five main nurseries and sub-nurseries to raise seedlings and plant materials of various kinds of trees that included mahogany, rubber, cacao, and marang, among others.
The important component in a reforestation drive, in the experience of the DCWD, is to include tree seedling nurseries. Maintenance and supervision are solely undertaken by the water district in partnership with settler communities.
“Adopt a Site” was an attractive idea for corporate social responsibility programs of firms, among them, San Miguel Foundation, Apo Agua Infrastructura Inc., Phoenix Gas of Dennis Uy, and the late Alberto “Bobby” Soriano, to name a few. Thousands of hectares were successfully reforested.
By 2013, DCWD began initial moves to tap the surface waters of Tamugan and Panigan. It entered into a joint venture with AAII on a bulk water project.
By the time the P12.5-billion Bulk Water Project started, Mt. Tipolog was already heavily reforested. As I write this piece, DCWD and AAII are preparing for the first cluster of some 11 barangays serviced by the Tugbok sub-water system to be supplied with BWP-treated water. Full delivery of water to DCWD’s eight off-take points will be accomplished this June.
All told, 300 million liters of treated water per day will be delivered by gravity to all the OTPs of DCWD, including its expansion areas. By June, nearly all of the production wells of DCWD that drew water from the aquifers will cease operation and be consequently fully recharged.
The supply of potable water to Davao City is virtually assured for many generations to come. It is now incumbent on Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte and the members of the City Council to pass an ordinance that would restrict commercial development of any kind within the protected watersheds and allow only agro-forestry in these vital recharge areas.
Otherwise, Davao City will face the same threat and tragedy of a waterless Metro Manila owing to the neglect and disregard of local and national government authorities and the lack of foresight on the part of MWSS and its concessionaires in restoring the forest cover of the protected watersheds of the rivers that supply water to Metro Manila.
Planting seedlings in the denuded watersheds of the various dams that feed water to the National Capital Region will not solve the immediate threat of waterless days ahead, but then it’s better late than never. In the Davao City experience, it took less than a decade for the trees to mature, absorb, and store rainwater which eventually was released to the rivers and the aquifers.
So, for goodness sake, forget EDCA, and prepare to quench the thirst of Metro Manilans.