What a difference a year made

In gentle, early-morning light seven days before his third State of the Nation Address, President Aquino in a yellow shirt-jac strode on a gravel path to the edge of a gully in the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System’s Stilling Basin area in La Mesa Dam. He came to push the ceremonial button inaugurating the recently completed Phase 2 of the Angat Water Utilization and Aqueduct Improvement Project (AWUAIP), a long-range program to provide safe water to millions in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces.

In this phase of the project, financed for P5.3 billion through the Preferential Buyer’s Credit of the China Export-Import Bank, a new 9.9-kilometer Aqueduct No. 6 was constructed for more efficient conveyance of raw water from Angat Dam to the La Mesa and Balara water treatment plants.

The first phase, completed in February 2006, was a 5.5-km bypass of the deteriorated section of Aqueduct No. 5.

Together the two aqueducts are saving 394 million cubic meters of water a day, formerly lost to leakage, that can now benefit 12 to 14 million people in Metro Manila, Rizal and Cavite. An additional six million households formerly without water service in Rizal, Cavite, and Bulacan can now have water piped into their homes.

From these bare bones emerged a symbol of the Aquino presidency as it completes its second year in worsening global warming. “Tagas”—Filipino for “leakage”—as the President called it in his keynote address, was the perfect word for what he has faced for two years. Communist naysaying and opposition razzing, bureaucratic inertia and ingrained corruption in the public service all resulted in tagas of life-giving water as much as of a people’s time, money and energy in increasingly uncertain times.

“Ang laking diperensya po talaga ng nagawa ng isang taon ng mabuting pamamahala (What a big difference a year of good management has made),” the President said that morning. He recalled that on his first year in office in 2010, the MWSS suffered losses of P34 million from corruption. By his second year, the same agency had earned P330 million, paid P236 million to 1,000 MWSS retirees, and turned over P150 million in dividends to the government.

Just as telling is how AWUAIP Phase 2 was completed eight months ahead of schedule, attesting to the soundness of the water management master plan crafted by the presidential team.

When Mr. Aquino’s term began, he found over 30 different agencies in water management lacking coordination and getting in each other’s way, unable to ensure a sufficient supply of clean water. His choice for the public works portfolio, Rogelio Singson, to coordinate an Interagency Committee on the Water Sector could not have been more fortunate.

“Unaccustomed as I am to extolling people in government, I would like to cite the efforts of Secretary Rogelio ‘Babes’ Singson for improving the systems and procedures at the [Department of Public Works and Highways],” writes Business Mirror columnist Ed Javier. “Singson is proof positive that with political will, our leaders can muscle out corruption and inefficiency in public office.”

Javier cites a special report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism last April, like a Good Housekeeping seal on Singson’s campaign to clean up the DPWH, the most notoriously corrupt government agency: “Through reforms in bidding transparency, the savings rate is up and there is now less collusion at the central office level of the DPWH.”

For one, a competitive bid for rehabilitation projects to repair dikes and riverbanks in Candaba, Pampanga, saved P24 million in a final contract price a quarter less than the original. For another, the DPWH secured lower offers upon rebidding typhoon-related projects canceled in 2010 due to the lack of public bidding. Fourteen projects showed costs going down by an average of 34 percent compared to the original cost.

The same prevention of collusion between bidders and public officials with transparency and strict adherence to public-bidding rules in MWSS saw Phase 2 of the AWUAIP project to early completion. The President praised MWSS Chair Ramon Alikpala and Administrator Gerardo Esquivel for intensive reforms: “Hindi lang ninyo pinaunlad ang kapasidad ng MWSS, ibinalik din ninyo ang integridad sa inyong tanggapan. Kung dati, halos ipamudmod lamang ng mga taga-MWSS ang sandamakmak at di-makatwirang bonus, ngayon, tinatapalan natin ang tagas sa pondong tanggapan. (You didn’t just improve MWSS capacity; you restored integrity to your office. A slew of undeserved bonuses used to be doled out to MWSS employees; now we’re plugging the leaks, saving agency funds).” This, the President added to applause, is worth giving bonuses for.

When the project is completed, moving on to forest rehabilitation and protection of our watersheds, 146 billion cubic meters of water per year will be available for agriculture, industry and households. At present, only 41 billion cubic meters are being used. The private sector-government partnership that made achievements possible in our water system under P-Noy would not have happened without a growing resistance to razzing, negative thinking and systemic corruption.

“Noynoying,” anyone?

Sylvia L. Mayuga is an essayist, sometime columnist, poet, documentary filmmaker and environmentalist. She has three National Book Awards to her name.