After nearly two full years of preparatory work, Baguio City has finally inked a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Japanese firm FujiClean Corporation Ltd. for the implementation of a wastewater treatment system in Baguio.
Under the MOA, FujiClean will implement a decentralized wastewater treatment system demonstration in partnership with the city, spearheaded by the City Engineering Office (CEO) and City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO).
The partnership was facilitated through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which establishes high-impact projects in other countries as aid for development. JICA is the same institution that assisted the city in building its existing sewerage treatment plant (STP) in 1982.
The need for additional wastewater treatment facilities has been a longstanding concern of the local government, whose aging treatment facilities in Sanitary Camp have long since been eclipsed in capacity by the output of wastewater with the city’s burgeoning population.
In fact, the treatment capacity to waste output ratio is so skewed that the wastewater treatment plant in Baguio City currently serves only 10 percent of the city’s households while handling 67 percent of wastewater flow.
In addition to the JICA wastewater project, Baguio had previously acquired a loan to the tune of P3.7 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in order to upgrade its old treatment facility to keep up with waste output.
Baguio’s current sewage treatment plant, which is currently 36 years old and connected to four different rivers, is unable to keep up with the sewage output of the city, with effluent waste far exceeding acceptable standards of 5,000 most probable number per 100 milliliters.
However, upgrading the network and the plant to acceptable modern standards and to satisfy the demands of the current population would require a hefty $50 million loan, or P2 billion, which the city and the implementing Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) are planning to secure from Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The hefty cost of the loan, amounting to P4 billion once the interest is factored in over the 15-year payment period, would then be financed by an annual P50 million appropriation from the city’s annual budget. An initial proposal that has yet to be finalized is the inclusion of an P80 “tourist tax,” a fee levied on each individual tourist visiting the city in order to support the operation and payment of the treatment facility.
