Poe hopes Marcos admin will make creation of Dep’t of Water a priority

Senator Grace Poe on Wednesday said she hopes the Marcos administration will make the creation of the Department of Water a priority amid the water crisis and the effects of the El Niño phenomenon.

While Poe acknowledged the administration's intent to streamline government services, she said the management of water resources is tasked to around 30 agencies.

“[Ang] pagpapatakbo ng pagdaloy ng tubig ay nasa ilalim ng 30 iba’t-ibang ahensya na hindi nagkakatugma-tugma. Thirty agencies are actually governing our water distribution and management. So kailangan pag-isahin ‘yan,” Poe said during the Kapihan sa Senado.

(Running the country's water processes is under 30 different agencies that do not work together. We need to unify them.)

“Meron pang mga provincial water regulatory boards. Yung MWSS [Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System], pasensya na, pero parang inutil pagdating sa pag-aadminister ng tubig,” she added.

(There are also provincial water regulatory boards. And sorry, but the MWSS seems useless when it comes to administering water.)

While President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. recently issued Executive Order 22 creating the Water Resources Management Office under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Poe said its function can be done by Congress as well as other relevant agencies such as the National Economic Development Authority, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the Local Water Utilities Administration, and the MWSS.

Poe said tht Section 2(a) of EO 22 states that the WRMO will “shepherd and champion, together with the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office, the passage of a law creating an apex body such as the proposed Department of Water and/or a regulatory commission on water.”

“[G]agawa pa ng management office para pag-aralan ito e kitang-kita naman natin na kulang ang ginagawa ng MWSS. Siguro dahil gusto nila magkaroon ng pag-aaral dito, kasama na rin ang Senado, bibilisan na sana natin ang pagpasa ng isang Department of Water Resources,” she said.

(They made a management office to study this when it's clear that the MWSS is not doing enough. Perhaps if they want a study on this, and the Senate does too, we should speed up the creation of a Department of Water Resources.)

Poe said the bill creating the DWR could be passed within the year if it were among the priority measures of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).

With the current water crisis, Poe said “sana magkaroon ng konsiderasyon na gawing priority.”

At least six bills seeking to create a department that will manage the country’s water resources were filed in the Senate. — BM, GMA Integrated News