[] A five-year plan for recovery requires “bold and aggressive” measures, which can be hampered or derailed by squabbles like (a) the Daluz-Rama fight over board seats at MCWD, (b) the legal battle over the mayor’s right to fire directors, which spilled over from courtroom to the day’s business at the water district and City Hall, and (c) ambiguity of the rule on LWUA’s right to take over a water district’s operations.
NEWS+ONE reported earlier today (Wednesday, February 4, 2026) some specifics for its January 14 report that MCWD or MetropolitanCebu Water District has been “losing immensely.”
LOSS, NEGATIVE CASH FLOW. MCWD lost P768 million in 2025 with negative cash flow of P342 million. It been producing its own water or buying from bulk suppliers at P35.70 per cu.m. but selling only at P1.03 per cu.m.
On top of that is high NRW or non-revenue water, roughly 32 percent to 35 percent of water produced, caused by leaks or theft, which costs P6.5 million daily.
AHEAD: INCREASES IN WATER PRICE. MCWD’s distress inevitably leads to consumers’ woe, in the form of increases in the cost of water. The first increase approved by LWUA or Local Water Utilities Administration will come this May. And more increases may be required to make MCWD operations return to the profit zone.
That’s most of the bad news.
Almendras, newly installed MCWD chairman of the board, unpacked his good news-bad news report to MCWD officials and employees -- assembled for prayer and national anthem -- last Monday, February 2, at MCWD headquarters.
Earlier, he had sent copy of the report to Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival Sr.
FIVE-YEAR PLAN. The good news is a five-year plan thataims to make MCWD profitable again by 2027, resting on the fact that the water district is “solvent.”
The value of MCWD’s fixed assets of plant and equipment exceeds its total losses and liabilities.
The plan will have a mix of “aggressive new productivity”; “volume management of bulk water supply”; and “repricing tariff rate and cost control.”
SPECIFIC MEASURES. Reduced to smaller specific chunks of information in the consumer’s mind, the measures include:
-- Cutting down the water waste or zero-earning water (the NRW) to 20 percent by 2027 by, among others, fixing leaks more quickly;
-- Renegotiate contracts with bulk water suppliers for prices that will be fair to them and to MCWD;
-- Set payment to 90 days after billing from supplier to help ease cash flow problem.
-- Review tariff rates so that big consumers of water will pay more, even as it will keep the “lifeline rate” for small-volume users.
CEBUANOS KEPT IN THE DARK FOR YEARS. The public had not been given the most crucial part of the pictureabout MCWD and its water supply: its finances.
For several years -- estimated by Almendras to start afflicting MCWD nine years ago or earlier -- consumers, most of whom reside in Cebu City, have been kept in the dark about the actual state of affairs in MCWD.
Its public relations office has been giving out the same line for almost a decade now: “operations, no fear of financial collapse or service shutdown,” la-di-da.
That, even as other crises whiplashed it, such as the crisis of leadership in MCWD, the court battle over appointment, restiveness of the labor union, “meddling” by City Hall and agitation among other Metro Cebu LGU leaders, “over-reach” by LWUA and the like.
“We’re OK” has been the MWCW pitch. It’s still “solvent” but it has been losing a ton of money everyday. Even as the image in the mind of many consumers in several parts of MCWD’s service area is that that of people queuing at public sources or going through dawn vigil in households, waiting for the water to flow.
THERE’S ALSO TOMAS OSMEÑA’S COMPLAINT, which the vice mayor and City Council presiding officer, raised in August 2025.
Osmeña, calling for an overhaul of the MCWD board, alleged that the water district is “plagued with all kinds of anomaly,” saying the situation “has gone out of control” and is “alarming.” Tomas cited “major signs of corruption,” which he still had to specify. Water is overpriced, he said, while struggling with high NRW losses.
Board chairman Almendras has so far omitted from the plan to rehabilitate MCWD the factor of corruption and irregularities. His report has not dived into that danger spot. Apparently to have a united and cooperative work force that will implement the reforms. In his address last Monday before MCWD personnel, he made that clear to officials and employees.
But if Osmeña’s allegations are evidence-based and not just suspicion, the corruption factor would affect seriously Almendras’s activism to rescue MCWD from eventual ruin. “Labi na kon entrenched na ang Mafia diha,” a former board director told me, adding “he he.”
NEITHER ‘HE HE’ NOR ‘HA HA.” Not a laughing matter; the MCWD problems are not.
The current crisis and similar ones before it have long raised the question whether near-total shutout of the local government, in this case Cebu City Hall, from the affairs of MCWD -- as ordered by the Local Water Utilities Act -- is not hurting the interest of consumers most of whom come from Cebu City.