By IPS Correspondents
MANILA, Mar 26 2004 (IPS)

”We won’t make our life more difficult paying for something we can’t even have,” Edita Mallorca, a resident of the Tondo slums here says, referring to services for clean water that have become an election issue in the Philippines.

As politicians, with an eye on the May 10 presidential poll, slug it out over a move by the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to rescue a private company that provides water services, Mallorca says all their big talk does not make a difference to her family.

Mallorca said she, her husband and three small children line up for water from a pump when it is not available on tap during the day. In their neighbourhood, water is piped to homes only from 5 p.m. until midnight.

Poor water supply was blamed for an outbreak of cholera late last year in which as many as 827 residents of the densely populated district were sent to hospital with vomiting, abdominal pain and severe diarrhoea.

One of those patients, Mallorca said, was a 10-year-old niece of hers believed to have contracted the disease after drinking cold drinks prepared by a street vendor.

Health officials said they found disease-causing bacteria in the local water. They blamed the outbreak on residents’ poor hygiene, waste disposal and sanitation practices and launched a massive health education campaign. The health department had taken the same measures earlier, when less serious outbreaks of diarrhoea occurred in two other Metro Manila districts.

A report by the department’s National Epidemiology Centre said water samples from the area were found positive for E coli or coliform, a germ that causes water-borne diseases.

”Outbreaks of this kind can be quickly controlled when people understand how to limit its spread,” the health department report said. ”Of particular importance is the information that this illness can be prevented with simple measures – drinking only safe water, practising good personal hygiene and preparing food safely.”

But Mallorca said: ”We’re used to government doctors visiting our place to investigate. Women like me who manage our homes understand the problem but what can we do with very little water supply?”

Her reality also appears quite distant from the high-profile debates that politicians have been busy with, especially since Arroyo has been accused of playing politics with the rescue of Maynilad Water Services.

While government officials are rescuing Maynilad – which also owes consumers 6.4 billion pesos (114.3 million U.S. dollars) in fees it was found to have overcollected over the years- Arroyo’s opponents have said the company should be penalised for mismanagement.

The Arroyo government’s plan has come under scrutiny because the majority owner of the debt-ridden Maynilad is a company owned by the powerful Lopez family – which also owns the largest television network widely perceived as favouring the incumbent president’s bid for a full six-year term.

The government reportedly has agreed to take over Benpres Holdings’ stake in Maynilad and to cancel 142 million dollars worth of unpaid concession fees by converting it into shares to be held by the government’s Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System.

In all, the state regulator will take a 61 percent stake in Maynilad. Consumers could be hit with increased water charges.

Raul Roco, an opposition presidential candidate, termed the government plan a ”bailout” and a ”scandalous deal”.

But presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said the deal was in the interest of consumers. ”We cannot just sit and shrug off an imminent crisis threatening the water service in major parts of the metropolis. The opposition insists that we must stop giving clean water to those who have none,” he said.

Maynilad was privatised in1997 to provide water and sewerage to the western concession zone of Metro Manila. In 2002, it terminated its 25-year concession when it failed to win approval for rate increases – and as doubts rose over the privatisation of water services indeed improved the quality and access to this basic service.

In truth, the Mallorca family’s plight is not at all uncommon in a megacity of more than 12 million where some 30 percent of residents live in informal settlements.

The Mallorcas’ home is one of a row of small doors that opens to a narrow space accommodating the living room, kitchen and bedroom. Water pipes have just been repaired, but some are still leaking. Some are submerged in canals, not far from sewage pipes.

It is a reflection of the bigger picture across the city, experts say.

Health officials said that because of its sheer size and degraded environment, the capital remains especially vulnerable to waterborne diseases 10 years after a rare nationwide cholera epidemic killed 200 people and caused illness to more than 3,000.

While there has been a steady increase in households with access to water, the metropolis has no sustainable waste disposal system, suffers from frequent flooding and loses 50 percent of its water supply to leaking pipes.

More than half of all Filipinos lack access to safe potable water despite numerous natural reservoirs for surface and underground water. Around 18 million people do not have sanitary toilets. In Metro Manila, only 40 percent of residents have sanitary toilet facilities.

In its Environment Monitor 2003 on Water Quality last month, the World Bank said that up to 58 percent of groundwater is in need of decontamination. Nearly one-third of all illnesses appeared to be caused by waterborne sources, it added.

”Untreated wastewater affects health by spreading disease-causing bacteria and viruses, makes water unfit for drinking and recreational use, threatens biodiversity, and deteriorates overall quality of life,” the Bank said in its report. ”The numbers of water-related health outbreaks including deaths are going up, as reported in the newspapers the past few months.”

A proposed Clean Water Act would seek to strengthen environmental protection and other measures aimed at improving the quality of the country’s water supply.

For now, however, Mallorca continues to wait in line for water. She scoffs at presidential candidates whose campaigners visit the neighbourhood to hand out caps and shirts, but not water.

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