A cause-oriented group appealed Sunday to the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) to halt the ongoing sale of the 246-megawatt hydro-electric power plant component of the Angat Dam, saying that water source for Metro Manila will likely be compromised once the deal will materialize.

Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) secretary-general Milo Tanchuling pointed out that the Angat Dam, which provides 97 percent of the water needs of at least 12 million residents in Metro Manila, serves a crucial function as a water source more than a power generation plant.

“Angat Dam is the single most important water source of Metro Manila. The dam also irrigates some 31,000 hectares of farms across 20 towns and municipalities in Bulacan and Pampanga,” Tanchuling said.

He also noted the dwindling level of the Angat Dam, which would also aggravate with the privatization of the dam.

Based on the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) data, the level of Angat Dam as of Sunday was 177.66 meters, down from 177.82 last Saturday.

He lamented that PSALM “takes on a blind eye to these factors and proceeds with the sale of the Angat Dam.”

Under Republic Act 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), PSALM is mandated to privatize all the assets of the National Power Corporation, including the Angat Hydro-Electric Power Plant (HEPP).

According to reports, PSALM expects at least six interested groups to show up on April 28, the deadline of the bid submission.

Tanchuling said among the interested parties include Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp., San Miguel Corp., Aboitiz Power Corp. and SN Power of Norway, the consortium of First Gen Corp., Ayala Group and Metro Pacific Corp., and DMCI Power Corp.

FDC said that privatizing the Angat HEPP effectively means transferring the control over how and when to use the water from the Angat Dam to the hands of private corporations.

“This will put the reliability of water supply of the residents of Metro Manila and some parts of Bulacan, Rizal and Cavite at risk because the winning bidder will prioritize the generation of electricity even if it means wastage of water flowing from the Angat Dam,” it noted.

“The MWSS has stated that the Napocor had been releasing water from the Angat Dam to generate electricity even when the water level is already critical. What more if the hydro-electric facility is transferred to a private entity?” Tanchuling asked.

Even the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has expressed that “the right to water is more fundamental and primary over the need for power. Hence, all actions that necessarily affects, directly or indirectly, this right must be construed strictly in its favor.”

Tanchuling said that the privatization will also jeopardize irrigation of farm lands.

According to him, the National Irrigation Authority (NIA) admitted that it is having problems coordinating with Napocor concerning the release of water for Angat Dam in order to channel the water flow for irrigation purposes.

The NIA admitted that it currently does not have sufficient infrastructure to hold huge releases of water from the Angat Dam.

Thus, the NIA itself fears that privatizing the Angat HEPP will cause even greater problems to the provision of irrigation to farmlands in Bulacan and Pampanga.

FDC also expressed concern over the management of water of the dam since it also serves as a flood controller of Bulacan and Metro Manila.

“We have recently seen how the unscrupulous management of water from the privatized San Roque Dam caused widespread flooding of the entire province of Pangasinan during the Typhoon Pepeng.

This flooding could have been prevented had the private owners of the San Roque Dam thought of the security of the people rather than the profit they could gain if the water in the dam rose to a very high level. This very same scenario can happen in Manila if the Angat Dam is put to private hands,” Tanchuling said.

“It has always been the ‘standard operating procedure or SOP’ of private corporations taking on power plants to terminate regular employees of the NPC in favor of new ones. Private corporations do these so that they would not have to pay for the benefits already enjoyed by the old workers of the power plants,” he added.

Moreover, the privatization will give effect on the continuing hike of electricity price, Tanchuling said.

“Since interested private entities bid at very high prices to increase their chances of winning the bid, the winning bidder naturally recovers their capital investment by overpricing their generated power to be sold to the Distribution Utilities (e.g. Meralco) and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). Distribution Utilities would then pass the burden to the consumers,” he explained.