According to the National Water Resource Board, the nation has been under water stress since 2007, with current water availability ranging between 1,000 to 1,700 cubic meters per capita. This issue was highlighted at a recent Philippine Institute for Development Studies forum, where immediate reforms were urged for the country’s water laws.
NWRB Water Rights Division Litigation and Adjudication Head Atty. Rebyanne Giselle Diaz emphasized the need to reexamine how water is allocated. She said that current legal frameworks of the Philippines and water systems may not be sufficient to cope with the increasing scarcity of water and the changing patterns of its use.
She criticized the current system’s focus on “beneficial use” and the “prior appropriator rule,” which may incentivize water waste. The former was introduced due to fear of monopolization by large entities of water resources, while the latter allocates surface and groundwater rights based on seniority. According to her, this legal system discourages water conservation by requiring appropriators to consume their whole allocation or risk losing their water rights. This not only discourages effective water usage but also limits innovation in water management.
Diaz proposed reforms such as requiring water conservation and efficiency programs as conditions for water permits. She also highlighted that legal reforms are not enough, as “a more proactive agency mandate will enable a more dynamic exercise of state ownership over all water resources.”
Despite the numerous, urgent, and persistent warnings on the importance of water as a resource that has to be conserved and protected, especially as the world’s population grows and the planet’s climate changes, legislators and bureaucrats have been slow to respond, which means that we continue to use the increasingly precious and finite resource in wasteful and irresponsible ways.
It is time our government delved into this issue more, in order to ensure that future generations will still have access to clean water, a resource that is projected to be the cause of conflicts, especially among nations that do not have enough of it. The Philippines does not have neighbors it competes with for water, but we will still need to be good stewards, as early as possible, if it is not going to be a serious problem in the future.*
