By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
This one’s inescapable. The connections are glaring that you don’t need conspiracy theorists to see it. The government and private business overlap is blaring and glaring: PrimeWater’s explosion of joint venture contracts began just as now-Senator Mark Villar — scion of the country’s richest family — took over the Department of Public Works and Highways in 2016.
If you trace the number of contracts, the handshakes under the table aren’t subtle. In 2016, PrimeWater – then 9 years in the business – held just 15 contracts. By 2017, with Villar firmly in the DPWH seat, that number ballooned to 22. Then 45 in 2018. Sixty-five in 2019. By the time the Duterte administration ended in 2022, PrimeWater had secured 75 contracts.
And what a coincidence: the agency that oversees water districts, the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), was attached to the DPWH. Need we point out that this is the department led by Villar, whose family owns PrimeWater.
In a Palace briefing days ago, the current LWUA administrator, Atty. Jose Salonga, says the priority is restoring water to problem areas — all of which are PrimeWater service locations.
He says the investigation into the firm on possible irregularities and who’s to blame for the disservice — perhaps even criminal in nature — is complete. But he backpedals, saying that the finger-pointing should come later.
My question is, why not resolve the water issues and bring on the charges — why not both? This isn’t a whodunit. The evidence is on the table, backed by Commission on Audit reports and consumer misery across Luzon and the Visayas.
In its statement, PrimeWater wants to “cooperate.” Of course it does — now that Malacañang has finally started to investigate. But how much of this mess was made possible by joint venture deals signed in silence, with little to no public bidding, and water districts suddenly losing money after entering into partnerships they supposedly needed?
Take Camarines Norte: auditors flagged directors’ junket claims to the U.S., with travel authority signed by Mark Villar himself, in his DPWH capacity. If that’s not cozy, I don’t know what is.
Or San Jose del Monte and Bacolod, where residents have fought for years to escape PrimeWater’s grasp. Who’s profiting here — the water districts or just their boards?
What LWUA should ask now is, “Are Villar-linked lands hosting pump stations too?”
Clearly, this is not just a case of poor water service, but a fully exposed case study on how political proximity can open the floodgates for deals, for impunity, and for privatized dysfunction in public utilities.
Fix the water? Yes. But don’t spare the fire because it may scorch certain powers in business and politics.
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