Baguio folks hit high John Hay water rates

BAGUIO CITY — Thousands of residents of Barangay Scout Barrio and its neighboring communities are protesting the planned increase of water rates collected from them at P39 per cubic meter by the John Hay Water Systems Inc. effective this month.

In a petition addressed to the chief operating office of the Camp John Hay Development Corp, affected residents demanded valid reasons why the water rates of the company were much higher than the water rates being collected by the Baguio Water District currently pegged at P31 per cubic meter.

Scout Barrio is one of the 14 city barangays that are located within the jurisdiction of the 686-hectare Camp John Hay watershed and forest reservation.

The petitioners demanded the private water company to justify the proposed excessive water rates to be collected from them considering services of the company are not satisfactory.

Petitioners also questioned the company for allegedly increasing their water rates to P33 per cubic meter last year without consultation with them.

They said the P33 per cubic meter, which is again being increased to P39 cubic meter, being collected from them is much higher than the prevailing water rates of BWD in violation of an existing agreement.

Earlier, JHWSI and BWD entered into a memorandum of agreement which gave temporary authority to the former to impose water rates which could not be higher than the prevailing rate being collected by the BWD from its consumers.

Obviously, the residents asserted that JHWSI have been grossly violating the said agreement and have taken advantage of the thousands of consumers by collecting much higher water rates from them, thus, the same is a violation of the contract at their own expense. – Dexter A. See