A JOINT panel of the House of Representatives has approved a substitute bill consolidating 35 House bills seeking to create the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Water Regulatory Commission (WRC).
The Committee on Government Reorganization and Committee on Public Works and Highways both approved on Nov. 12, 2019, the unnumbered substitute bill.
The committee chairs noted the urgency and importance of the substitute measure given the issues plaguing the water supply in Metro Manila and the directives of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Our agenda is very timely due to the recent and continuing water crisis which is being experienced by the residents of Metro Manila and nearby provinces,” said Rep. Ramon Guico, who represented the highways committee and co-presided the hearing with Rep. Mario Vittorio Marino, chairman of the reorganization committee.
The DWR shall be the primary national agency to implement Presidential Decree 1067, otherwise known as the Water Code of the Philippines and Republic Act 9275, otherwise known as the Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004.
Its creation shall ensure that there is a government body responsible and accountable for all aspects of water resource management, including the development of dams and other infrastructure, the harvest of water and the management of the waste water system.
The measure also provides for the creation of the WRC, which shall serve as an independent, quasi-judicial regulatory body under the administrative supervision of the DWR as an attached agency.
The DWR will essentially be in charge of resource management while the WRC will be focused on economic regulation, according to Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, who sponsored the bill and is an author of one of the substituted measures.
The new department’s attached agencies will include the Metropolitan Waterworks Sewerage System, Local Water Utilities Administration, Laguna Lake Development Authority, Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission and National Irrigation Administration. (Philexport News and Features)