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Friday, September 15, 2006
Roperos: Water, my city for water
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
The way key players in Metro Cebu’s search for additional supply of potable water to meet the needs of an increasing population are behaving remind me of poor King Richard in a Shakespearean play.
The English king fought a valiant battle, but when the smoke cleared he found himself alone and without a horse. That was when he realized how important a means of transportation is. Then he shouted that famous cry:
“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”
Of course, the similarity between that Shakespearean scene and our city’s need for more water a few years hence may be farfetched now, but it could happen. And it will not just be one person that would be crying but a whole population that is estimated to number 200,000 then.
The problem between the two parties trying to negotiate the supply of some 40,000 cubic meters daily to the city in 2008 does not seem to take into consideration the people’s problem but only their profit.
I feel, though, that the current figures the two parties are working on as important to the deal do not concern purely the amount of investment that is placed at risk in the project. It is possible it is really about the percentage of profitability to the investors.
Perhaps, in order for the negotiation to push through, the investors ought just to reduce a little the percentage of profits they believe their investment deserves in favor of the potential economic implication the water shortage might have on the city’s life.
And then perhaps, there should be less politics involved in a dominantly economic concern. There would be greater risk in the lives of the city’s inhabitants when politics come into play in a business negotiation where the stake is the fulfillment of purely public interest.
The problem of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) and the Ayala-led consortium may not openly involve indigenous business, as well as local political interest, but that such twin interests are subtly involved has been implied in some sectors.
We are not quite sure how big or how politically important are the stakes involved in the matter, but we know that there are such intervening features that tend to slow down the progress of the negotiation. There are also talks from some sectors that tend to factor in restraining forces designed to derail rather than push through the agreement.
Truth to tell, I just cannot come to grips with the motives of those who do want the agreement to conclude in favor of the public need for water, whether now or in the future.
At any rate, the naked reality of the MCWD-Ayala problem is the basic need for more water among the city’s inhabitants in the months to come. That the city leadership should prepare now for such eventuality is, to me, a given.
Now, I do not know how the key players of the water problem are going to resolve this dilemma. But that the problem exists and that it needs to be resolved before it is too late should be the center of interest of the negotiators.
We do not wish to hear cries pleading to exchange our city for water.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 15, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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