BY IKE SEÑERES
I DO not know who the bright boys are who figured out how to organize the supply chain of electricity, but it’s brilliant and its working perfectly well.
The supply chain is composed of three components, namely power generation (production), power transmission and power distribution.
Each component is independent of the other, and every component complements the other in orderly sequence.
I do not know where these bright boys are now, but how I wish that they would again harness their brain matter to organize a supply chain for the supply of water.
I would not be surprised if only a few people are thinking that the supply chain of water could actually be organized. Perhaps that is because we are so used to having water around as an abundant natural resource, just like air or oxygen.
Even now, we should perhaps be thinking about the supply chain of oxygen, even if it seems too early for that. The brilliance in the supply chain of electricity lies in the strategy of each component being self-reliant, starting from the point of production.
It goes without saying that if there is no production, there is nothing to transmit, and therefore there is nothing to distribute.
There was a time when it was considered a crazy idea to bottle water for drinking, in the same way that it is a crazy idea now to bottle oxygen for breathing. As of now, however, it also sounds like a crazy idea to generate water (produce water) from any source, because the general understanding is that water need not be generated, because it is always there, and is always available as a natural resource.
As it is now, natural water flows into manmade dams, and that is where the government draws water for transmission to the water lines of the water concessionaires. So far, that is what we have for the production side, and nothing else.
Somehow, and in some ways, we have a transmission component that feeds most of Metro Manila, a system that already feeds the distribution component that has already been privatized also in Metro Manila.
Aside from the manmade dams however, we do not have a production component for Metro Manila and the rest of the country. As it is now, autonomous water districts outside Metro Manila are drawing their water supplies from some natural sources here and there, but it appears that none of them are producing water as they should be.
Another brilliant element of the supply chain of electricity is the law that allows the operation of independent power producers (IPPs). We should now duplicate this brilliant element by creating another law that would allow the operation of independent water producers (IWPs), aside from the autonomous water districts (AWDs) that we already have.
Suffice it to say that these AWDs may be producing (actually just extracting) enough water from natural sources right now, but in order to ensure the adequate supply of water in the years to come, there should be additional water production already, and not just simple extraction.
As I understand it, many parts of the country still do not have water systems and some parts are still relying on deep wells. Depending on where these parts are, there could already be a danger in extracting water from deep wells, simply because the aquifers in these areas may already be contaminated.
In some other parts, particularly in the urban areas, there is already excessive digging of deep wells, so much so that the soil in these areas have already weakened and are already prone to collapse. This is yet another issue of public safety.
Aside from the aquifers that are already polluted, some above ground sources such as lakes and rivers may also be polluted already, not just by toxins but by deadly chemicals and metals such as mercury.
This is a problem that should concern both the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Since there is an overlap in their functions as far as this problem is concerned, I hope that they would work on this together instead of pointing fingers at its other.
Pardon my ignorance, but it seems to me that there seems to be no government agency that is specifically responsible for water safety on a nationwide basis, even if there are so many agencies that are “touching” on this responsibility here and there. The balkanization of responsibilities between the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage Systems (MWSS) and the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) does not help either, because they could just point fingers at each other.
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) could perhaps do something too, one way or the other.
Water is a commodity that is subject to the law of supply and demand. That said, it is really necessary to tap all the water sources at the supply side, including rainwater, wastewater and even seawater. All of these sources could be tapped, if only there is a specific government agency that would be responsible for doing so.
On the practical side, it is the idea of IWPs that could push this goal forward. To be specific, it is the mechanism for public and private partnerships (PPP) that could make this possible.
Mutualization is the concept of transferring public services to the private sector. It is a form of privatization, but the rights to operate public services would go to public corporations that are mutualized, instead of private corporations per se.
To put it another way, mutualized companies are public corporations that are serving the public interests.
Mutualized companies are also completely different from cooperatives also because the former should be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) while the former are registered with the Cooperatives Development Authority (CDA).
I am not opposed to the idea of giving the distribution rights of water and electricity to private concessionaires. My wish, however, is that the rights would be given to mutualised public corporations, instead of the private companies.
As I see it, mutualization and cooperativism are the two remaining hopes for the fair and democratic distribution of wealth, not only in this country, but all over the world. In a manner of speaking, mutualisation is the broader version of cooperativism that could be applied on a nationwide basis. For good reasons, cooperatives could even be the investors in the mutualised companies. (Email bantaygobyerno- subscribe@yahoogroups.com or text +639083159262)/PN
