By Lane Afable
Muntinlupa City Mayor Ruffy Biazon, for the second time, has summoned top officials of Maynilad Water Services Inc. to explain persistent water service interruptions affecting residents in the city.
In two separate letters, City Mayor Biazon invited the concessionaire’s senior management for a meeting with the local government where will present a plan to address the problem.
The letters were addressed to Maynilad President and Chief Executive Officer Ramoncito Fernandez and Chief Operating Officer Christopher Lichauco.
Biazon claimed the water provider failed to give timely and adequate notice to customers about service interruptions, leaving residents unprepared.
“It is lamentable that Maynilad is unable to properly inform its customers about the service interruption in a timely, efficient, and effective manner.
“The uncertainty of service restoration also causes undue stress, inconvenience, and lost productivity,” he said.
The mayor also called on the concessionaire to provide compensation to affected consumers.
“At the very least, there should be a rebate to customers who have been deprived of the quality of service Maynilad is obligated to deliver to the people,” he said.
Biazon further criticized the company’s lack of coordination with the city government, saying local officials are often left unaware of the situation on the ground.
“Government itself is not spared from this failure to communicate by Maynilad. We are also in the dark on what is going on, which necessitates us to initiate contact with Maynilad instead of Maynilad proactively engaging the local government,” he lamented.
The mayor noted that the hiatus persist even as the company operates two water treatment plants drawing from Laguna de Bay.
While Maynilad has said it deploys water tankers for emergency distribution during outages, Biazon said the measure has not been enough to serve affected residents.
“While Maynilad claims to deploy tankers to provide emergency distribution, it definitely is not sufficient to support all subscribers and the impact is not significantly felt,” he said.
Last month, Biazon convened a town hall meeting with Maynilad officials to discuss similar service disruptions.
During the meeting, company representatives attributed the interruptions to operational challenges at one of its treatment facilities.
