Cagayan de Oro City Water District Chairman Gerry J. Cańo discussing non-revenue water issues at the Meet the Press forum, September 3, 2025. With him are General Manager Edna Salazar Najeal, Engineering Department Head Rhona Kim U. Ferido, and Cagayan de Oro Press Club Director Amor D. Barlisan. Photo by Cheng Ordońez
TheMonitorMindanaoT0oday.com | COWD non-revenue water still high 49%
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – The volumes of water that firefighters use, those given out to evacuees when calamities occur, and in flushing out impurities to ensure water quality should be removed from non-revenue water (NRW) computation.
This, in gist, was the response of Cagayan de Oro City Water District (COWD) Chairman Gerry J. Cańo when asked for the latest on NRW reduction campaign, in a Meet the Press forum on September 3, 2025. COWD’s latest NRW figure was 49 percent.
“NRW should be recalibrated,” Cańo said, suggesting that the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) should reexamine NRW which is currently defined “as the difference between the amount of water put into the distribution system and the amount of water billed to consumers.”
He said that the water utilized in flushing — to make sure distribution pipes are clean and clear from sediments — should be part of maintenance, while those spent in flushing streets, upon request after flooding incidents, be considered as corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Water rationed in evacuation centers and those sucked out from fire hydrants during fire incidents should — in for the past five decades of COWD’s operation – have not have been factored in in NRW computation because these are intrinsically CSR by nature, the COWD chairman said.
“We intend to reduce the NRW by two percent every year,” COWD General Manager Edna Salazar Najeal said in the forum who disclosed the current 49-percent NRW earlier, way down from 2017’s 56 percent.
Najeal, who assumed her post in January this year, said COWD is currently rehabilitating its pipelines initially estimated as a P6.7-billion upgrade project, is imbedded in the water district’s a 10-year development plan.
Engineering Department Head Rhona Kim U. Ferido said reducing NRW has always been challenging for them because many of the pipes are found under the ground and leaking cannot be noticed immediately, hence their appeal to the public to report to them once leaking is detected.
Ferido said these pipes have been there for several decades and must be replaced or else leakages will continue to be a nagging problem, leaving NRW issue unresolved.
LWUA Chairman Lindley Santillan and Trustee Danilo Daroy graced COWD’s 52nd Founding Anniversary at Limketkai Luxe Hotel in this city on August 1, this year.
COWD achieved its “Hall of Fame” as the country’s Most Outstanding Water District in 2000, having been MOWD recipient in 1999, 1987, and 1986. (MT)
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