STATE WORKERS COMMEMORATE WORLD WATER DAY WITH PROTEST, CALL FOR END TO PRIVATIZATION

Submitted by courage_phil on Fri, 03/26/2010 - 21:56.

In commemoration of the World Water
Day , state workers, including employees from different water districts and
their clients, today held a protest action in front of the main office of the Metropolitan
Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) along Katipunan Road in Quezon City.

 

They claimed that the looming water
scarcity is a result of the worsening privatization trend presently besetting
the water districts. COURAGE National President Ferdinand Gaite said that
privatization of water districts from across the country poses a very serious
problem in providing accessible and potable water to everyone. “The Water
Crisis Act of 1997 during the Ramos administration opened the floodgates of
wholesale privatization of water districts nationwide. The Manila Waterworks
and Sewerage System (MWSS) experience has shown that privatization failed to
deliver the promise of providing better services including lower rates. The
government gave the private concessionaires the liberty to implement water rate
hikes,” he said.

 

COURAGE maintained that water must
not be treated like a commodity and the government must not allow private
companies, whose main taget is super profits, to monopolize water distribution.
The group stated that water rates in Metro Manila have shot up after the MWSS
was privatized and the public can expect the same in the provinces once water
districts are sold to big capitalists. “Water is life. Now that the whole
country is bearing the terrible effects of the El Niño, we urge the Arroyo
government to re-think its privatization policies concerning the water
districts. Massive privatization of dams has also wreaked havoc to our farmers.
During drought, the government even aggravated their miseries by imposing
exorbitant irrigation fees even to those who do not benefit from it,” Gaite
added.

 

The leader explained
that privatizing the water districts will also imperil the employees’ job
security and tenure. The MWSS retrenched thousand of its workers after being
sold to the Lopezes and the Ayalas.

 

COURAGE also warned
against unscrupulous transactions involved in the sales of government assets. These
privatization deals, more often than not, are designed to be cashcows of skewed
officials, the government workers asserted.

 

The militants pledged
to remain steadfast in their fight to nationalize the water utilities and other
social services. “Our campaign against privatization is our fight for better
social services that the Filipino people deserve,” Gaite ended. #