LAST Monday, February 2, 2026, at MCWD's monthly assembly for the national anthem and prayer, newly elected chairman of the board Ruben Almendras told the water district's officials and employees how bad the state of affairs is at the company running Metro Cebu's water supply.
He had said before, in effect: "Cebu, we have a situation at MCWD." This time, before MCWD officials and employees at the assembly, he added more specifics.
This time, he separated the bad news from the good news, as careful messengers of life-or-death tidings do.
THE LOSSES. Earlier, on January 12, Almendras, then newly appointed as director and not yet chairman, told me MCWD was "losing immensely and on negative cash flows." Revenue was "less than cost of water, he said, so no gross margin." "Severe financial losses" was the phrase he used.
At the assembly last Monday, Almendras said MCWD produces or buys, from bulk water suppliers, at P35.70/cu.m. -- and sells at P1.03/cu.m.
An earlier report, not from Almendras, disclosed higher numbers: MCWD spending P43 to P78 per cu.m.
On Tuesday, February 3, Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival said the MCWD is losing P6.5 million daily on "non-revenue water" (NRW) or wasted water, which doesn't earn money and mostly does not reach a faucet. Usual cause is "leaks" but it can also be due to "aging infrastructure," and theft and other unauthorized use of water.
NRW has ranged from 25.26 percent in 2020 to -- all this in 2025 -- 28.9 percent in December, 32.8 percent in November and 32-35 percent in January-April. After the typhoons in 2021 and 2022, NRW rose to the all-time high 49 percent.
Archival obviously got the information from the Almendras report.
INCREASE IN PRICE OF WATER. Profitability tops MCWD's concern just as the price consumers pay leads theirs.
If your MCWD bill has gone up already, it must be due to increase in consumption -- you did not actually get more water, just more air, often the complaint of months or so away. People leave their faucet open, hoping water will flow in the night while they sleep, should expect the bill to go up or go higher. Almendras said the LWUA-approved rates will start in May, three months or so away.
And since MCWD, under the new board of directors, plans to go back to normal -- that is, make a profit -- that means, a series of price increases will come soon.
WHAT ALMENDRAS REPORT DIDN'T INCLUDE in Monday's report are specifics on fraud, which he suggested in his earlier disclosure to News+One.
Almendras hinted of corruption when he said -- and reported in News+One of January 14, 2026 -- the losses in MCWD must have gone on for years already, starting "nine years ago" or 2016, "or earlier." They were "massaging" the financial reports, Almendras said.
Until the new board chairman provides specifics to the public, consumers and other people with stakes in MCWD will have to speculate.
Where could corruption have thrived? Who can be held responsible? Will they be made to answer for the irregularities?
MEANWHILE, MCWD HAD SAID, 'CONDITIONS NORMAL.' By "MCWD" here, I mean the pre-Almendras management, which answered Vice Mayor Tomas Osme a's fears, publicized in August 2025, about the water district's financial and management affairs.
The "official statement" then was the standard response, namely: "No looming water district shutdown, no financial collapse, no basis for alarm." Topped with the "assurance" that the company "continues to operate under normal conditions."
If MCWD were operating normally, it would not be in an emergency and crisis mode now.
BUT ALMENDRAS HAS GOOD NEWS as well. Following this.