The BWD is proposing a hike in the city’s water rates, a rate increase of some 30 percent this year, and two more similar rate hikes per year until 2027.
These are being proposed as an attempt to fund increasing operational costs and development projects for the Baguio Water District, a system whose growth has been outstripped by the growth of demand.
Baguio, designed for a population less than a sixth of what it has today, consumes resources in significant amounts. Chief of these is water.
Not only are there at least 360,000 individuals permanently living in Baguio, but the populace also swells to double or more at the very busiest of days, and there are many (relatively) massive establishments that consume large amounts of water, such as golf courses, whose bespoke Tifway 419 grass guzzles up water, or the increasing number of residential and commercial high-rises that need constant water connection.
Latest figures indicate a water production of 60,000 cubic metres daily, which seems a lot when viewed on its own but struggles to keep up with daily demand, which outstrips production at values as high as 66,000 cubic metres a day.
This leads to undersupply in portions of the city and the implementation of rationing. Some households have to simply exist in acknowledgement that some days of the week, there just will not be water.
The BWD is asking us, once again, for our financial assistance on this matter in the form of increased rates. With this funding kickstarter, they pledge to increase not just water supply with an eventual goal of 80,000 cubic meters by 2027, but improve services and water quality with water treatment facilities, expanded network coverage, new and replaced pipelines, and overall better “everything,”
We do not really have much choice in this matter—unlike many things, water is a necessity that cannot be particularly compromised on. So, if this is the only option offered to us to continue to have that necessity, we must surely take it.
But what we can ask, and must ask, is that there be rules in place to ensure that water, which is so hard to come by in this urban mountain city, be put to good use and sustained. The water table drains faster than it can refill from natural rainfall as green cover has declined, and at least 10 wells a year are to be established for the next years to come.
We do not have an excess or oversupply of this necessity. The least we can ask is that what we have of it is used well, to the benefit and needs of the residents, and not some massive project that consumes disproportionate amounts of the liquid gold for an unreasonably small handful of individuals.
