Manila Water head apologizes, says ''prepared to resign''
Manila Water on Monday admits a breach in its service requirement under the concession agreement, which caused shortage for nearly a week in several areas, causing its president to tell a House committee hearing he is prepared to resign.
"I think we cannot deny the breach in the 24/7 service because the people feel it. There is a prescribed penalty for it if it cannot be corrected in 15 days, 60 days, 150 days as enshrined," Manila Water president Ferdinand Dela Cruz said during a House committee hearing.
Dela Cruz said he will take accountability for the water concessionaire's service issues that affected most customers in the East Zone of Metro Manila.
"I'm taking full accountability for what has happened and wherever that leads me to, I will take accountability for that action. I am prepared to resign for failing the customers but my focus right now is to restore the service even if it's in a slow process," he said.
In a press briefing, Dela Cruz said out of the 56 barangays affected by the shortage, 11 barangays do not have water. He said they are "far ahead" of their 99 percent water availability target.
"In totalm we’re already above 90% water availability. We are working hard to achieve this we hope by end of March," he said.
According to Dela Cruz, there is 99 percent water availability in areas of Makati, Mandaluyong, Marikina and Rizal.
Taguig reached 98 percent water availability and 93 percent in Pasig. The lowest current percentage of water availability is in Quezon City with 89 percent, he said.
For at least 12 hours, some remaining areas in Quezon City including Pasong Tamo, as well as in Makati, Marikina and Pasig will have no water.
The 230 tankers providing water supply in affected barangays have gone down to 140. Dela Cruz said it indicates the number of areas with no water are decreasing.
He explained there was a different turnout in their expected water demand when they first issued an advisory for weak water pressure in some areas.
"When we already implemented a plan when we ran out of supply, what really threw us off is when the demand profile we projected was different from what actually happened. This caused an imbalance and inability on our side to refill our reservoirs properly which cased our pumping stations to be stressed," Dela Cruz said.
Manila Water assured that the crisis will not happen again in the future.
"Given the new operating scheme that we are doing - the activation of Cardona (water treatment plant in Rizal) and progressive commissioning of the deep wells, plus the cross border flows and potential increase in portal - we assure that we will not experience what happened last March 6," dela Cruz said. Cristina Eloisa Baclig/DMS
