Cebu Manila Water Development Inc. (CMWDI) officials came to Gov. Gwen Garcia with a stopgap measure during a meeting at the Capitol on January 9. Instead, they went away with the blueprint of a long-term solution.
Christian Batallones, Manila Water Philippine Ventures general manager, told Gov. Gwen that CMWDI would be implementing a 12-hour water service interruption on January 11 in order to repair pipe leakage located in Danao City through welding.
“This is a 700 millimeter pipe, and a leak would cause too much losses,” Batallones told Sugbo News afterwards. “We’re losing about 2 to 3 million liters per day; that’s too much. It started earlier this year,” he added.
CMWDI is a joint venture firm between the Cebu Provincial Government and Enrique Razon-led Manila Water Consortium. It collects and treats 35 million liters daily (MLD) of surface from Carmen town’s Luyang River and sells it to Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).
However, Gov. Garcia strongly objected to the water service interruption as it would fall on a rather unfortunate date for Cebu which is beaming with tourists who are here for the Sinulog Festivities which will begin exactly on the said date, January 11.
The water CMWDI sells benefits the towns of Compostela, Liloan, Consolacion; as well as the cities of Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, and Cebu, running the length of its 34.8 km of pipeline.
A 12-hour water service interruption would be too much a burden for consumers and business establishments in Cebu, Gov. Gwen said.
The governor, upon further questioning, also discovered that MCWDI has been over-delivering in its water commitment, registering as much as 38 MLD, a blatant violation of the agreement in the joint venture that authorizes the delivery of only 35 MLD.
“It’s rather unfair kasi kasalanan niyo to e,” Gov. Gwen told Batallones, adding that the leakage must have been caused by too much pressure on the pipes designed to deliver only 35 MLD but have been made to accommodate the increased volume of 38 MLD.
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
But even if the situation is bleak, the governor saw it as opportunity for growth. She told Batallones not to patch the leakage by welding the pipes as it would be both time consuming in looking for the leak and is also a stopgap measure.
Instead, she suggested that they replace the entire pipe segment instead where the leak is detected with pre-fabricated pipes.
“Tulad lang yan ng broken heart. Wag nyo na i-repair. Palitan nyo na ng bago!” Gov. Garcia told Batallones in jest.
But the governor was not joking that she is seriously considering expanding the water commitment of CMWDI from 35 MLD to as much as 45 MLD as water demand in Cebu is also on the rise.
In this connection, she asked CMWDI to conduct an inventory of its pipes and come up with a plan in order to make it withstand the additional pressure of increased water volume to be produced by CMWDI.
“Let us not just build for today. Let us build for the future, for the Cebuanos 15 years from now,” Gov. Garcia said. | Ioannes P. Arong