Advocacy group Water for the People Network (WPN) is appealing to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System \u2013 Regulatory Office (MWSS-RO) to halt the ongoing rate rebasing process that is expected to raise water rates in Metro Manila and its environs, saying the basis for determining future water rates remains unresolved.<\/p>\n
Concessionaires Maynilad and Manila Water continue to contest the MWSS-RO’s 2013 decision to\u00a0prohibit water companies from passing on their corporate income tax and other questionable expenses to consumers.\u00a0Both companies took to international arbitration to protest government\u2019s denial of their petitioned rate hikes, with Maynilad demanding government to pay Php72 billion in lost revenues and Manila Water demanding Php10 billion. Both cases are still pending in the courts.<\/p>\n
WPN said that pending resolution of both controversies, any rate rebasing scheme would be conjectural and would burden the public with unjust and unnecessary increases in the midst of soaring prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith continued lack of transparency in the rate rebasing process and petitions, water companies could make another attempt to pass on questionable charges to consumers through their water bills,\u201d said former party list representative Teddy Casi\u00f1o, a convenor of the WPN.<\/p>\n
For the 2018-2022 rate rebasing period, Maynilad is seeking an estimated Php12 per cubic meter increase, while Manila Water is seeking and Php8 per cubic meter increase. Rate rebasing pertains to the periodic computation of water rates based on government\u2019s review of the concessionaires\u2019 petitioned new tariffs. The latter supposedly covers the companies\u2019 past and projected expenses and a guaranteed rate of return.<\/p>\n
However, due to water consumers and advocates\u2019 clamor during the rate rebasing process in 2013, previous water regulators disallowed corporate income tax and other expenses unrelated to the delivery of water from being computed into the water bill.<\/p>\n
Casi\u00f1o said that since 1997 when water utilities were privatized, basic or average water tariffs have soared by as much as 596% under Maynilad and 970% under Manila Water, contrary to the promise of affordability. Studies also showed urban poor families end up shelling out thousands of pesos beyond their means for either fetched water from the community pump or submeter water access in the absence of direct water connections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWPN hopes that the government will look upon the rate rebasing petitions with public interest foremost in mind,\u201d Casi\u00f1o said. He added that the network will guard against the inclusion in the bill of the Php82-billion uncollected funds which both private companies have pleaded international arbitration courts to demand from the government.<\/p>\n
According to Casi\u00f1o, government\u2019s accession to the companies\u2019 demands would certainly entail higher user fees. \u201cThis will double the burden on poor Filipinos who are already struggling with price hikes due to the new taxes,\u201d he said. Casi\u00f1o challenged the government to not allow companies to impose onerous fees for profit. ###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Advocacy group Water for the People Network (WPN) is appealing to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System \u2013 Regulatory Office (MWSS-RO) to halt the ongoing rate rebasing process that is expected to raise water rates in Metro Manila and its environs, saying the basis for determining future water rates remains unresolved. Concessionaires Maynilad and Manila […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[530,347,906,905,1347,84,116,83,656,1346,167,1101,655,1076,168,868,33,85,904,903,1103,1348,907],"class_list":["post-6899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ibon-networks","tag-corporate-income-tax","tag-duterte-administration","tag-manila-water","tag-maynilad","tag-metropolitan-waterworks-and-sewerage-system","tag-mwss","tag-philippine-economy","tag-privatization","tag-public-utilities","tag-rate-rebasing","tag-right-to-water","tag-right-to-water-advocates","tag-water","tag-water-bills","tag-water-consumers","tag-water-for-the-people-network","tag-water-privatization","tag-water-rate","tag-water-rate-hike","tag-water-rates","tag-water-rights-advocacy","tag-water-utilties","tag-wpn","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 14:13:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6901,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6899\/revisions\/6901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}