Joint Congress panel to probe La Mesa housing project

A joint congressional panel of the Senate and the House of Representatives will investigate the controversial housing project at the La Mesa Dam Watershed in Quezon City starting next week.

The joint panel will be headed by Sen. Pia Cayetano, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and the Oversight Committee on Clean Water; and Bukidnon Rep. Nereus Acosta, who co-chairs the oversight committee for the House of Representatives.  

Cayetano said the initial public hearing will center on the proposed 58-hectare housing site for MWSS employees, which was vehemently opposed by environmentalists.

A group cited risks posed to the watershed by the proposed housing site and the three-hectare executive housing village already being constructed for the agency’s top officials.  

"The watershed faces potential threat not just from one, but two housing projects," Cayetano said.

The panel, she explained, will determine if there is basis for the concern of environmentalists that waste water coming from the housing sites could contaminate water in the reservoir and eventually endanger the safety of the water being consumed by Metro Manila’s 12 million residents.

The other day, National Water Resources Board (NWRB) executive director Ramon Alikpala said the agency will conduct a probe to determine if the proposed construction of a housing project for retired employees at the La Mesa Dam in Quezon City will affect the water supply in Metro Manila.

Alikpala said he received a letter from concerned citizens last Monday, including the Save the La Mesa organization, detailing the concerns raised against the housing project .

"We will have to study this matter. Although there is a legal issue, we have to determine if infrastructure development will indeed affect the water source," Alikpala said during a forum at the Philippine Plaza Hotel in Manila.

He noted that the La Mesa water system gets its supply from the Angat Dam, which supplies about 97 percent of the water demands of Metro Manila.

Maynilad treats its water at the La Mesa compound itself, while Manila Water gets its water from the La Mesa reservoir that goes directly to the Balara treatment plant.

The Senate panel is set to invite MWSS employee-beneficiaries and their legal consultant, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, and environmentalists led by the Save the La Mesa Dam Coalition.

Also invited were experts from the UP National Hydraulic Center, which released a report critical of the housing project and the Philippine Environment and Social Assessment Network which is supportive of the project.

Top MWSS officials led by Administrator Orlando Hondrade will be asked to shed light on the three-hectare executive village.

Hondrade reportedly owns one of the 54 houses at the executive housing site, which is located less than a kilometer from the reservoir and just above the lake.