A memorandum prohibiting water districts or joint venture operators from charging fees or disconnecting customers if they do not meet minimum service standards, is in the works as the plan was disclosed during a Senate hearing attended by officials of the Local Water Utilities Administration and the National Water Resources Board, where consumer concerns were raised with the Senate committee on public services.
The panel chair, Senator Raffy Tulfo, said many consumers are being forced to pay even if the water supply reaching their community is not sufficient or of poor quality.
LWUA Administrator Jose Moises Salonga said his agency and the NWRB “are working on a joint memorandum circular [stating that] if the service level required of a water district, including its partner, is not met for more than a month, consumers don’t have to pay and their services cannot be disconnected.”
Senate Deputy Majority Leader Risa Hontiveros also asked both LWUA and NWRB if they could pave the way for a refund in the case of customers who had been paying water bills despite poor service.
The Senate committee on public services is looking into the joint venture agreements between local water districts and private companies following the State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last July, where he vowed to hold underperforming companies accountable.
The president then reported that consumer complaints had reached his office, along with a situational report submitted by the LWUA.
Water districts and other utilities that fail to deliver services that meet minimum standards yet continue to charge customers who rarely have other choices have gotten away with so much at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve, making a little accountability go a long way. Hopefully this supposedly impending memorandum is the start of an era where erring utility providers are finally held accountable for poor quality of services, especially if it doesn’t come with the usual loopholes that these utilities have been exploiting for decades.*
