After over 16 years of being deprived of the most basic service, the 10,000 or so households of BF Homes Para?aque can finally enjoy the amenities of urban living, hopefully beginning this year.

DMCI-MPIC Water Company Inc., a joint venture between Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and DMCI Holdings Inc., is stepping up pipe-laying activities in the BF Homes subdivision that straddles the cities of Para?aque, Muntinlupa and Las Pi?as. A source told this writer that the water company that owns the right to operate a water concession in the western zone of Metro Manila was making further inroads into the subdivision amid the contentious pricing scheme being insisted by banker and developer Bobby Aguirre.

Property prices in the subdivision, meanwhile, have started to appreciate, according to the source. The once-elusive water supply now is part of the equation in the valuation of BF Homes properties.

BF Homes residents were probably the most neglected among the fairly upscale villages that sprouted in Metro Manila in the past two decades because of the water supply problem in the south. The family of Bobby Aguirre that owns developer BF Homes Inc. and Philippine Waterworks and Construction Corp. remains the biggest stumbling block to the resumption of water supply.

Philippine Waterworks, or PWCC, is the operator and distributor of the village?s water system but financial constraints apparently stopped the Aguirre company from supplying potable water to the area. BF Homes and unit PWCC had prior rights over the distribution of water in the village, preventing DMCI-MPIC Water from directly supplying residents.

State intervention

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, however, issued Executive Order 688 granting the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System the right to take over the village?s water system after the developer continued to fail to provide residents with an adequate service.

PWCC, after sitting idly on the lack of water supply in BF Homes, contested the presidential directive in court, arguing that MWSS? takeover was confiscatory in nature. PWCC had insisted that it retained the right to distribute water to the village and that it could resell the same water from DMCI-MPIC Water to residents at retail price.

PWCC, in short, will be happy buying from DMCI-MPIC Water in bulk and retail the water supply to the hapless households of BF Homes, in contrast to the majority of Metro Manila residents, who buy directly from their distributor at no surcharge.

It seems that PWCC wanted a higher retail price to enable it to recover the value of its assets over a period of time. Those are the same assets that DMCI-MPIC Water is now replacing?old pipes made of carcinogenic asbestos that are of no use to the water distributor.

MWSS, of course, can still carry out the presidential directive if PWCC and DMCI-MPIC Water fail to resolve the pricing issue and the P5-million debt owed by the Aguirre company to the government. It can finally take over the subdivision?s water system and allow DMCI-MPIC Water to deliver water directly to residents. That should be the reward of BF Homes residents, who had long endured the lack of a basic water service.

E-mail: rayenano@yahoo.com or business@manilastandardtoday.com