THE same day – same hour – when news leaked that MWSS was penalizing Manila No Water with a R1.13 billion fine, what water we were being given abruptly slowed to a trickle. Overnight, we were back to the service interruption/disruption mode, i.e., little or no water, a guessing game with no schedule to follow.
Stop making threats, MWSS. Instead of telling us that consumers won’t be entitled to a drop of that waterfall of pesos, why not look over the shoulder of Manila No Water to press them to hasten the work of finding additional sources of water?
Is there a connection between being served by MWSS and being served by its water concessionaires? Certainly MWSS will quickly wash their hands. (No water? No problem). Must be like asking Phivolcs if there’s a connection between and among the earthquakes that shook Luzon on Monday, Visayas on Tuesday, and Davao Oriental and Occidental on Wednesday and expecting a mystical answer, and not getting one. Geologists dismissed the thought, and we were expected to believe them, because they’re experts. (But deep down we were too suspicious not to be titillated by a possibly mystical explanation for that eerie chain of earth-shaking events).
MWSS owes us, though not in any mystical way. They will deny any connection, but we suspect they do, as a government agency that owes its taxpayers a service and, in this case, an explanation. Look at your bill, General Velasco, and check out the FCDA (whatever is that?), environmental charge, and VAT. If MWSS is the Service System in charge of Water, and it is the regulator sitting on top of Manila No Water and Maynilad Water, and you allowed the disruption, you are just as guilty.
As your boss the President put it in such flowing language to show how miffed he was, the level in the reservoirs goes down every summer, it’s a seasonal thing, and yet you didn’t have the kidneys to anticipate the drying up of the dams! It happens every summer – where were you and your experts the day after Christmas and New Year’s and Valentine’s?
