THE certified urgent Senate Bill No. 2595 pushing for an increase in the authorized capitalization and borrowing capacities of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) is up for Senate approval as it resumes session today.

SB No. 2595, under Committee Report No. 248 and submitted jointly by the Committees on Public Works; Public Services; Ways and Means; and Finance, seeks for an increase of the water agency’s authorized capitalization to P50 billion and its borrowing capacities to P1 billion and US$ 1 billion for domestic and foreign loan sources, respectively, to pave the way for the development of water supply systems in the countryside.

President Arroyo had earlier certified the necessity of the immediate enactment of SB No. 2595 citing that the Congress should “address a public emergency arising from the urgent need to provide potable water supply to the rapidly increasing population in the country’s fast urbanizing towns and cities, consistent with the country’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG).”

LWUA Administrator Orlando Hondrade expressed optimism of Senate approval of SB No. 2595 today as the increases in LWUA’s financial capacities will realize the agency’s mandate to develop and improve water supply systems in the countryside through the provision of sufficient supply of safe and potable water.

He earlier emphasized that Senate approval of the financial provisions of SB No. 2595 will enable the agency to fastrack the establishment of more water districts and undertake expansion and modernization of existing water districts. This is in connection with LWUA’s responsibility to provide safe and potable water supply to all barangays in the countryside and at the same time institute reforms in the provincial water sector.

LWUA has formed a total of 594 water districts in the countryside to date. Although 453 water districts are already operational, 141 are non-operational; making only 15 percent or roughly 13.5 million Filipinos served of the country’s projected 2007 population of 88.7 million (based on NSO data). With this data, 85 percent of the residents in the countryside have no access to sufficient supply of safe and potable water.

Hundreds of municipalities are still without safe and efficient water supply systems and around half of the already operational water districts need to be modernized and to expand their services thus the need for increased authorized capitalization. LWUA’s capital stock was already exhausted as early as 1992.

Once approved and ratified by both chambers of the 13th Congress, the LWUA Bill is set to be signed into law by President Arroyo. The Senate approval of the LWUA Bill will be a move geared towards further development of the provincial water supply sector with the agency providing funds for the establishment, expansion and modernization of water districts in towns and cities outside Metro Manila.

c June 4 , 2007