Metro Manila's 2019 water crisis: Of efficiency traps and dry taps

Abstract

In 2019, Metro Manila experienced a water supply crisis, barely 2 years after the government and its private concessionaires were given international recognition for a successful water privatization, with success defined in terms of high operating efficiencies and improved service levels. These service-level improvements, however, brought about a surge in consumer demand, which necessitated the construction of a new water supply infrastructure. Regulatory failures resulting in nondelivery of the infrastructure effectively negated and trapped the efficiency gains that were built slowly over the years, at a cost of US$5.4 billion. Such failures resulted in public indignation over dry household taps, as well as a presidential anger that threatened to cancel the program in its entirety. Using the lessons learned from this crisis, the paper enumerates measures to help unlock the traps set by these regulatory failures.

“Central” and “peripheral” adaptation pathways of entangled agrifood systems transformations

“…In the early weeks of March 2019, thousands of households from at least seven cities in Metro Manila as well as in the neighboring province of Rizal were left with no supply of water for several days (Rivas, 2019). Some analysts attributed the water outage to low water levels in the reservoir due to El Niño phenomenon (Lee et al, 2020) coupled with a surge in consumer demand and institutional lapses in regulation (Torio et al, 2021). The President and his economic managers seized the opportunity to make a compelling case for the construction of Kaliwa Dam amid fierce opposition from a network of protesters both in the Philippines and abroad.…”