Parched Taguig

Ordinary Filipinos or those who do not have the money for an air conditioner and the high electric bills that usually go with its use have no choice but to suffer the record heat in their homes.

It’s worse in some communities in Taguig City since aside from the sweltering weather, residents are having to endure the incompetence of both the local government and a national agency.

For a week now, the residents of Palar Village, which is part of two barangays, Southside and Pinagsama, have had no water, the ridiculous result of the city government’s and the Bases Conversion Development Authority’s (BCDA) failure to communicate.

The area used to be part of the sprawling military camp called Fort Bonifacio but it had long been privatized, yet the BCDA still controls its water supply.

The current situation could have easily been avoided through the simple turnover of the water system directly to the residents, as the recent action of the Taguig City government proved.

The victims of callous and incompetent officials said they pay P67 per cubic meter for water and their payments were up to date but it turned out that a water service subcontractor, called the Inner Port Neighborhood Association, had racked up P5 million in arrears with Manila Water.

Only then did Taguig City officials do what they should have done a long time ago — order the direct connection of the homes to Manila Water without going through a layer of profiteering middlemen.

The bumbling Taguig City officials should be made to compensate the residents of the two barangays for the inconvenience and the illnesses they suffered as a result of being deprived of water.

A water shortage is an ordeal that Taguig City residents have long been forced to go through as a result of ineffectual leadership.

Some residents of the city, which is home to the most glamorous business center in the country, do not even have a piped water system.

“We obtain water by fetching it or paying to have it delivered,” a resident said.

Occasionally, huge water tankers deliver rations to residents who have to pathetically line up with their water pails to obtain the life-saving liquid.

Bustling Taguig City is thus one of the areas of concern of the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) which reported that 53 percent of households in the Philippines lack access to a safely managed water supply.

Several bigger problems result from the water crisis in the city. Some ingenious opportunists, for instance, offer a submeter system for P160 per cubic meter for non-potable water. Potable water used for cooking and drinking is bought from filtration stations.

Those with a piped system do not even consider themselves lucky as most of them are paying for the air instead of water that comes out of their taps. They spend around P2,000 a month for mostly mirage water. Some households disconnect voluntarily from the pipe network since they are being charged for the air pressure.

Meanwhile, supplying water to the desperately dehydrated barangays is a lucrative business.

Residents contribute for water tankers at P1,500 for each trip. Individuals can buy water from the trucks for P10 per gallon.

Illegal deep wells abound in the city the water from which is sold for about half the cost from the commercial suppliers.

The experience of Palar Village is replicated in other districts such as at the FTI Compound where a water provider requires a membership fee of P14,000 for a water service connection and an installation fee of P6,000.

The United Nations in a resolution in 2010 recognized “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.”

Taguig City should be subjected to a class suit for violating the basic right to clean drinking water.