CEBU City Mayor Edgardo Labella is asking for P500 million from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to finance the replacement of old pipes of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).
Labella is seeking to reduce MCWD’s non-revenue water (NRW), which he estimated to be currently at 50 percent, and subsequently improve water supply.
Ironically, a proposal aimed at rehabilitating the utility’s water distribution system to reduce NRW was proposed in 1999 by former MCWD board chairman Joel Mari Yu, whom Labella fired on October 15, 2019. The proposal was submitted by Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., where Yu was then a top executive, and its partner Vivendi.
In his letter to the DBM, Labella said there is a need to address the leakage of water caused by an old pipe system.
“Another major problem being faced by the Cebuano community is the high wastage of this precious water resource, which is commonly attributed as non-revenue water (NRW). This is due to the fact the water pipe system is quite old and in a sorry state, causing several pipes to leak,” read a portion of Labella’s letter, dated Oct. 15, 2019, that was sent to Acting Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado.
The mayor said he received a report that the NRW in Metro Manila is around three to seven percent. However, in Metro Cebu, the NRW percentage is higher. (NRW is the water that is produced by a service provider and is lost before it reaches customers.)
“The NRW for Metro Cebu is around 50 percent of the water distributed due to excess leakage in distribution pipes,” Labella said.
He said there is a need to change the old pipes to lessen the NRW and increase the MCWD supply to 25 percent.
“In line with this reality of water problem, I, on behalf of the Cebuano community, would like to request for the above mentioned funds intended to augment the repairing or replacing of the old and dilapidated water pipe system so as to put an end to the high wastage of the Cebuano community’s water resource,” Labella said in his letter.
Also on Oct. 15, Labella fired MCWD board chairman Joel Mari Yu, board members Augustus Pe Jr., Procopio Fernandez, lawyer Ralph Sevilla and board secretary Cecilia Jugao-Adlawan. The mayor ordered the termination of MCWD board members, saying they failed to address the current water crisis hounding their consumers.
Last Oct. 17, Yu sent a letter to Labella, defying the latter’s order, which he said violated the Constitution and Presidential Decree 198 (the Provincial Water Utilities Act of 1973) that governs the operation of independent, locally controlled public water districts. The MCWD is a government-owned and -controlled corporation supervised by the Local Water Utilities Administration.
A week later, Yu resigned. Representing the education sector, Yu’s term was supposed to end on Dec. 31, 2022.
MCWD general manager Jose Eugenio Singson Jr. also quit his post.
Following Yu’s resignation, the MCWD board named Pe as acting chairman. While MCWD assistant general manager Stephen Yee was named acting general manager following Singson’s resignation. (FROM PAC OF SUPERBALITA CEBU / KAL)