Angat Dam raises hopes

FOR the rest of the year and even next year, Metro Manila will have a water crisis, like it or not.

Starting with Maynilad ( I live in an area serviced by Maynilad) scheduled water interruptions as the new normal.

Other cities serviced by Maynilad have water interruptions almost the whole night long with the water level of Angat Dam continuously receding from its minimum level of 180 meters. We have had water crises before when people had to line up for water and the usual water dump trucks for the rationing of water.

Metro Manilans are no longer strangers to the water crisis.

We had it before, and people had to bear with it.

This shortage has come to a point that hospitals, both state-run and private, are so hardpressed to find nurses that it has compelled the new Department of Health Secretary Ted Herbosa to propose hiring not only board exam passers, but graduates who flunked if only to augment health forces.

This is of course stupid, but it is a reflection of the crisis now facing our health system.

Nursing continues to be in demand as a course, but many graduates are jobless by choice, waiting mainly for an opportunity to leave for abroad and work overseas.

And we all know the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the problem about catching the virus.

Records show as of December 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country, no less than 200,000 nurses reportedly were out of work not because of choice but because they couldn’t be employed.

The reason for this is the meager pay they get and working conditions.

Santa Banana, the problem got worse because high income countries also short of nurses started to dangle incentives such as resettlement of nurses’ families.

Santa Banana, this constitutes a double whammy to the Philippines because of the lack of remittances from those working abroad.

Perhaps in an attempt to cushion the impact of the problem which has become a crisis, President Marcos Jr. said, “we are victims of our successes.”

Are we?

WITH El Niño exhaling threats on the Philippines, there appears good reason to smile with the water level at Angat Dam, which supplies more than 90 percent of Metro Manila’s potable water needs, rising a bit.

The water level at Angat Dam, on the southeastern part of Central Luzon, originating on the slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountains, has increased to 179.06 meters on Sunday.

But the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said while the dam’s water level had slightly increased due to rains brought by the southwest monsoon, it remained below its minimum operating level of 180 meters.

The Angat Dam, which energizes a hydro-electirc power plant, also provides for the irrigation needs of 25,000 hectares of farmlands in Bulacan and Pampanga. PAGASA however said the water level in Angat Dam may still fall.

With this possibility, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Water Resources Management Office (DENR-WRMO) issued Bulletin 1 or its water conservation guidelines for government agencies following Malacañang’s Memorandum Circular

The country’s problem with water has an adverse effect on the food supply

22, which requires WRMO to track other departments’ progress in water conservation by analyzing their monthly water bills.

While El Niño—projected by PAGASA from June to first quarter of 2024—does not directly cause water scarcity, the reduced rainfall it brings can influence decreased water supply and droughts.

Only last month, Senator Loren Legarda pointed out in a statement that “we are facing the alarming truth that our water resources are already depleting at a disturbing rate.’’

There is a need for everyone to conserve water and act swiftly to avoid a potentially devastating water crisis that would impact our daily lives, food production, and the environment.

No less than President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. raised an indictment with his belief the government has not been examining the water crisis in the country.

“We do not look at it, just find other ways and put up with the idea that once in a while we’ll have to pull out our buckets and fill our bathtubs with water because there’s not going to be water for the next 24 hours,” the President said.

According to the President, the country’s problem with water has an adverse effect on the food supply, citing the importance of irrigation in the agriculture sector.

“And so when they say water is life, it’s not just a cliché, it’s a truism. And it is something that we must always keep in mind especially now,” he said.

The President has signed an executive order that will create the Office of Water management, which aims to manage the country’s water resources and respond to environmental challenges.

In the meanwhile, we join officials in asking citizens to conserve water, but local government units must as well assure clear and constant communication with water suppliers to manage demand,

My gulay, I am wondering why the government hasn’t done anything about this problem.

This brings to fore questions like, why Metro Manila has to rely on Angat Dam.

Maynilad and Manila Water have not done anything but to rely only on what water regulators -- the Metropolitan Water and Sewage System and the Water Resources Board— have provided for Metro Manila.

Yes, we in Metro Manila had survived the water crisis before, but should we accept a water crisis as a new normal?

Our water concessionaire, Maynilad, continues to explain to us what is happening and there’s not anything we can do but to accept everything.

But, Santa Banana, what has been done to at least mitigate the crisis?

Should we just accept everything that has been given to us, the consumers?

And for goodness sake, what has the government done, as I said, to mitigate our suffering as consumers?

They say when the rains come, the water crisis will at least be mitigated.

Again, I know I am asking for nothing much from the government to lessen the water crisis that has adverse effects on the people.

But, it seems we have to live with it, and there’s nothing we can do about it, and, like it or not, admit it or not, my gulay, there’s nothing we can do but to accept it.

What I’m worried about are the poor who must line up for a can of water.

At least for me and my family, we have a water tank that we can refill everyday.

Should this be the case, the new normal?

Good thing there are deep water wells that serve as an alternative to lining up. But, will we accept it just as it is?

When the rains came

Because of the dry spell that brought about the water crisis in Metro Manila, came floods in most parts of Metro Manila that caused a traffic standstill which took commuters hours to go home.

Santa Banana, Metro Manila must be cursed!

But, personally I prefer the rains because, my gulay, at least Angat Dam could be refilled, and Maynilad and Manila Water would have a chance to mitigate the hours of long rationing of water to millions of their customers, all caused by the El Nino dry spell.

As for the floods that usually result when rains pour on Metro Manila, there’s no end to it because of clogged waterways and esteros.

That can be blamed on the inability of Metro Manila Development Authority to prepare

The problem now is how to have nurses stay in the country to increase the workforce.

The DOH now has the problem of how to contend with the shortage of nurses.

The DOH itself has a shortage of staff with only 194,000 personnel, including 106,000 nurses and 67,000 physicians.

Also lacking are pharmacists. I’d rather say that we are not victims of our success, but our failure to stop the exodus of nurses and even physicians by not giving them good pay and better working conditions.

It’s no success at all, but our abject failure to provide decent jobs to our own people.

NAIA concessionaire planned

With the unsolicited offer of the six conglomerates of P210 billion to repair and modernize the Ninoy Aquino International Airport following the continuing criticism that NAIA is perhaps the worst international airport in the world, there are also plans to privatize management and make the six conglomerates the management as a concessionaire for 20 years and renewable for another 15 years.

That’s a good idea and logical.

More than a modernized international gateway, there is an urgent and imperative need for NAIA to be handled and managed well and only in private hands can it be done.

With the management of NAIA in private hands, President Marcos Jr. can give the people a modernized international airport and, with modernization, an international gateway we can be proud of.

Customs and Immigration, of course, can still be in government hands.

What is more important than a modernized NAIA is that, with privatized management, we hope for less brownouts and breakdowns of air-conditioners.

The Civil Aviation Authority will remain as the agency to ensure navigational air space, communications and security.

That’s a government function since it involves national security.

What’s happening?

BBM must really be scratching the bottom of the barrel with the appointment of a disbarred lawyer as presidential adviser on poverty alleviation.

When a lawyer gets disbarred by the Supreme Court, it’s a reflection on the character of that member of the bar.

Then, there’s the controversy of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) having a new logo costing P3 million.

Santa Banana, P3 million just for a new logo ? What a waste of the people’s money.