‘Dirty’ tap water forces poor to pay more

While living only a few steps away from two of Metro Manila’s major water treatment plants, sari-sari store owner Edralin Cartel wouldn’t dare let her family drink water from the tap. The 29-year-old mother has reason to be concerned. Only last year, her 7-year-old daughter Beverly contracted amoebiasis, a food and water-borne disease, supposedly from contaminated water in school. Prior to this incident, the Cartels found nothing wrong with drinking tap water.

Since then, Cartel has resorted to buying five-gallon jugs of purified water from a nearby refilling station for her family of three, at P35 per jug once every two weeks. This adds up to a monthly spending of P70 on bottled drinking water—on top of the P300 that she has to shell out every month to pay for the water bills charged by a government-regulated water service. Still, it is a small price to pay for health, says Cartel, whose house in Pansol, Quezon City, is a 10-minute walk from the Balara treatment plant of her water supplier, Manila Water Company Inc. With a combined income of around P16,000 a month, she and her husband, a computer technician, could easily shoulder the added expense. It is not the same story, however, for some 64,400 families in Metro Manila who live below the poverty line. Latest data from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NCSB) show that a Filipino family of five needs at least P4,869 monthly to meet basic food needs. In Metro Manila, where the minimum wage is pegged at P426 a day for non-agricultural industries—or P8,520 a month for those with five-day work weeks—the monthly income that a family needs to stay out of poverty is pegged at P8,251. (A survey by the Social Weather Stations or SWS says 43 percent of NCR respondents rate themselves as poor.) Basic need Water is a basic human need. Our bodies are estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent water. We need water to regulate body temperature, transport nutrients and oxygen to our organs and tissues and cells, remove waste and protect our joints and organs. We lose it through urination, respiration, and by sweating. The jury is still out on how much water an individual needs on a daily basis in order to survive. The popular notion is that we need to drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water a day to remain healthy. Thus, a family of five will need to buy at least 11 five-gallon jugs—the equivalent of around 900 glasses a month—to meet this requirement if they depend on refilling stations for their drinking water. This is equivalent to P385 monthly if the family buys per jug for P35. The demand for safe drinking water has fueled a multimillion-peso water refilling station industry that generated P1.6 billion in Metro Manila sales in May 2011 alone, based on a study released by Kantar Worldpanel Philippines. This represents a 34-percent increase from the P1.2 billion recorded sales in the same period in 2010, says Kantar. Kantar, the local arm of a global market research firm, regularly monitors the purchasing behavior of households toward fast-moving consumer goods, or those that are used on a daily basis such as water. A growing number of Metro Manila households is resorting to water from refilling stations amid concerns over the safety of tap water, notes the research group. In a household panel study, Kantar reports that over 6 out of 10 Metro Manila households bought water from refilling stations at least once in 2010 alone. This represents a 22-percent increase from figures that Kantar recorded a year earlier (See graph based on Kantar data). The trend is by no means unique to Metro Manila. The entire country posted a 9-percent increase in the demand for water from refilling stations in the same period, according to Kantar. Compared to other urban areas in the Philippines, however, it is Metro Manila that has the most number of residents who consider water from refilling stations “safer." (Watch more in the video below) Latest data from 2009 show Metro Manila as among the regions with the highest incidence of diarrheal diseases and cholera (See sidebar). Both are food- and water-borne diseases. Dr. April Navalta, a pediatrician, says children are especially at risk when drinking dirty tap water. This can expose children to diseases such as acute gastroenteritis and typhoid fever, she says. “If you drink your tap water, you can never be so sure how clean your water is. So if you’re using tap water, you boil your water before drinking it," Navalta says. State resource If she can only be assured that tap water is safe, Cartel, a Manila Water customer, would rather drink from the faucet given her water bills. “Ang taas taas ng tubig namin eh. Dapat pagbutihin pa nila ‘yung serbisyo nila (We already have exorbitant water bills. They should improve their service)," she says. Consumers like Cartel have the right to demand quality service from water companies. After all, water is a public utility. The Water Code of the Philippines, or Presidential Decree No. 1067 signed by then President Marcos in 1976, is clear on who controls this resource: “All waters belong to the State." And since water is “vital" to national development, the law subjects its utilization and protection “to the regulation and control of the government." Jose Carmelo Gendrano, deputy executive director of the advocacy group Philippine Center for Water and Sanitation (PCWS), points out that water is different from other goods and services because this resource is mobile. “So an owner is hard put to defend his property rights over it. Halimbawa, ako may spring sa akin. Hindi ko masasabi sa spring na, ‘Huwag kang mag-flow. Dito ka lang sa akin.’ Talagang magfo-flow ‘yan (If I have a spring, for example, I cannot tell the spring, ‘Do not flow. Stay here.’ The spring will continue to flow)," he says. The government also needs to exercise control over water because the mobility of this resource allows for the spread of contaminants, according to Gendrano. “I cannot just do whatever I want with the water, na padumihin siya, kasi kakalat siya eh. Mag-ii-spread siya, especially downstream where other people may be using it," Gendrano says. Gendrano notes that the United Nations (UN) has come up with a resolution declaring the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right. Adopted in 2010, the resolution acknowledges “the importance of equitable, safe, and clean drinking water and sanitation as an integral component of the realization of all human rights." No ‘free’ drinking water It is thus the government’s duty to provide the public with safe water to drink, Gendrano says. He notes that the government could do this in two ways: through direct provision or through regulation. Either way, potable water comes with a cost. Money is needed to facilitate the flow of water from watersheds, to collect it in dams, to treat it, to store it in reservoirs, and then to distribute it through pipe networks, says Gendrano. Government can subsidize the provision of clean water, but to do so, it will have to get funds from taxpayers. Gendrano says another option is for the government to tap private companies to treat and distribute clean drinking water. These companies shall then charge customers so they can recover their investments and make some profit in the process. “Kasi ‘pag malugi sila, kawawa rin ang customers (Because if they lose money, the customers will suffer). Services will stop or deteriorate," Gendrano says. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon affirms this principle in his remarks at the UN General Assembly plenary meeting on the human right to water and sanitation in July. “Let us be clear: a right to water and sanitation does not mean that water should be free. Rather, it means that water and sanitation services should be affordable and available for all, and that States must do everything in their power to make this happen," Ban says. Water concessions In Metro Manila and surrounding areas, the government has entrusted the task to provide the public with water to Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water. The two companies get their mandate from water-supply concessions that began in 1997 (See sidebar). Based on the Water Code, both Maynilad and Manila Water are subject to government regulation. The law that regulates water quality is the Sanitation Code of the Philippines. It requires water supplies to pass the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water (PNSDW), last updated in 2007 and promulgated by the Department of Health (DOH), which is the lead agency mandated to implement the Sanitation Code. In Metro Manila, a multi-sectoral committee monitors the compliance of Maynilad and Manila Water with the PNSDW. Called the Metro Manila Drinking Water Quality Monitoring Committee, this is chaired by the DOH Center for Health Development-Metro Manila. Other committee members include the MWSS Regulatory Office, the Environmental Management Bureau, the National Water Resources Board, Maynilad, Manila Water, and local government units. Every month, the committee subjects water from Maynilad and Manila Water to a bacteriological, physical, and chemical examination. Generally, Maynilad and Manila Water get positive certifications from the committee, which they banner as a proof of quality. In its latest water quality pronouncement, issued on August 26 for water used in July, the committee said the drinking water in the Maynilad and Manila Water distribution systems is “of sanitary quality with adequate residual chlorine." Unconvinced Before our interview, Cartel did not know these findings, even that such a committee exists in the first place. Informed about the positive findings, Cartel remains unconvinced. “Bakit magtatae ‘yung mga bata? Lalo na ‘pag umuulan, bakit madalas na magkaroon ng pagtatae kapag umuulan kapag nanggagaling sa gripo ‘yung tubig? Kaya ‘di rin talaga kami nagtitiwala (Why do the kids experience abnormal bowel movements? Why do they experience this especially on rainy days, when they get water from the faucet? That’s why we can’t easily believe them)," she says. Referring to DOH officials, Cartel adds, “‘Di ako naniniwala na umiinom din sila du’n sa gripo eh. Malamang bumibili rin ng mineral water ‘yung mga ‘yun." While believing that water is adequately treated at the nearby processing plants, she challenges water suppliers to more closely monitor other reasons for contamination, such as leaking pipes. “Dapat nasa kanila rin ‘yung pag-che-check nu’n, kung may problema ‘yung tubo, kasi minsan talagang ‘di namin alam (They should also check the pipes for problems because sometimes we really cannot tell)," says Cartel. – with reports from Karlitos Brian Decena (Next: Tap water in Metro a lot cleaner now, say experts) This article was produced under the Maggie de Pano Fund for Investigative Reporting on Health. The Fund, which is managed by Newsbreak, is funded through a grant from Macare Medicals Inc. (See the story as posted on the Newsbreak website here)