Urgent: Department of Water Resources (1)

Earth, our home planet, is perhaps the only planet in our solar system and galaxy that thrives on water. It is no wonder that our human bodies and everything else that lives and grows on earth need and contain water. Grade school stuff.

At a forum on water some years ago, and with an apocalyptic scenario on my mind, I did raise the question to scientific experts on whether the water content of our planet is constant—that is, what goes up as vapor comes down as rain in the same amount and nothing (I hoped not) escapes to outer space. The answer was yes, but rain needs to fall on the right places.

Well, a miniapocalyptic scenario is before us now in the National Capital Region (and in farming areas), what with water being rationed as it was never done before in this scale that I can recall. The dams supplying NCR are still at their lowest level, even as the skies are hesitant to pour down rain on the parched metropolis.

Time for oratio imperata?

There are more people now in NCR than before, and therefore less amount of water for each one. That is, if we are speaking about the water contained in the nearby dams that can only hold so much as main sources. But when there is too much rain, the dam overflow is carried away to the sea, or worse, creates havoc on surrounding communities.

Then factor in global warming/climate change.

Among water and environmental experts, there is now a push for the creation of a Department of Water Resources (DWR). I sought out former environment secretary Elisea “Bebet” Gozun, who cites the more than 30 different government agencies/units that have water-related functions but “there is no centrality of data on water resources.” Might it be high time to put them all under one umbrella? Good metaphor while we are waiting for the heavens to get us all wet and happy.

A consultant of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda), Gozun is one of the drafters of the bill creating DWR. She was among the founders of the Earth Day Network Philippines and Clean Air Asia, and presidential assistant for climate change during the Benigno Aquino III administration. Gozun, the environmentalist, wears many hats.

A draft bill creating a DWR is being readied, but getting it passed will take time. In the meantime, an executive order (EO) is also being drafted as a short-term measure that would address the water crisis.

The draft bill has gone through the different committees within the Neda Infrastructure Committee (subcommittee on water resources, the technical board and the Cabinet committee chaired by Neda Secretary Ernesto Pernia). Neda has endorsed it to the Office of the President.

According to Gozun, the short-term EO would strengthen the National Water Resources Board if it is transferred from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the Office of the President, thus transforming it into a national water management council and ensuring a functional integration. Actual integration will need a law.

Gozun notes that, despite the looming 2019 El Niño, no one had planned for it, institutionally that is. There could have been mitigation measures for water users (water supply and sanitation, agriculture, hydropower, recreation, ecosystem protection, etc.).

In this land of self-styled seers, sages and clairvoyants (none in government?), no one has prophesied this bleak scenario.

“Wala kasing Champion for Water within the government,” Gozun laments.

If you were a foreign investor, would you invest in a country where flooding is common but water is rationed?

Fragmented approach, outdated water resources assessment, underinvestment in the sector, lack of centralized water data base. In sum, “the multiplicity of institutions and fragmentation in water governance.”

An explanatory note on the draft bill creating the DWR says that the DWR “will guarantee the conservation, utilization, control and management of water resources (that) shall be undertaken in a comprehensive, integrated and coordinated manner to meet the present and future water needs of the country.” A rain of big words there.

As for us citizens, what do we contribute in our personal capacity to help solve the water crisis?

More next time.

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