The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) has identified the lack of a lead government agency as a major factor for the numerous issues the country’s water and wastewater sector,
PIDS echoed this for the nth time in a study released in 2022 before the polls, and also pointed to wastewater management in the country is affected by “institutional and implementation fragmentation issues.”
While government agencies have been given mandates in water supply, quality, servicing, and wastewater, “overarching framework and direction were absent.”
The study said that while the Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004 designated the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as the oversight agency for implementing water quality guidelines, effluent standards, and environmental regulatory compliance, the law “did not consolidate mandates of institutions across specific aspects on sanitation.”
To address the country’s fragmented approach to water and wastewater management, the PIDS authors pointed to one good example in integrated water management like that of Singapore, which has its Public Utilities Board to handle the oversight and integrated management of the country’s water supply, research and development, and collaborations with experts from the country and globally.
Besides the “empowered regulatory body,” the country should also have a masterplan for the water sector to “inform the direction and strategic approach in water supply and wastewater management both at the national and subnational levels.”
Years before the pandemic, certain congressmen filed bills creating the Department of Water Management or its equivalent. But none of these s became a law.
And while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has certified as urgent the passage of the DWM, it remains to be seen as to how both chambers of Congress will act on making the measure a law.
This is disappointing because more than 10 years ago, the need for an agency like the DWM was already stated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in a study in 2013 titled “Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Assessment, Strategy, and Road Map.”
What is happening today was referred to by ADB as “institutional fragmentation” that can be resolved by the creation of one department or agency to oversee the water and sanitation sector.
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