[Be The Good] Water issue has Cavite, Bulacan voters thirsting for change

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'Pick candidates who will use their power, not for selfish interests, but for the good of the Filipino people'

The Philippines is getting too hot to handle, in more ways than one. It’s the height of summer, all but the privileged few with around-the-clock air-conditioning are suffering. It’s also the height of the campaign period with elections less than a month away and overseas voting already taking place. [Rappler Recap: First day of overseas voting for 2025 elections]

Last Saturday, April 12, the Rappler team and our Cavite partners experienced both. We held our “Make Cavite Liveable” Elections Kapihan at the University of Perpetual Help Molino attended by around 120 people. Boy, did the discussions get heated!

You can get an idea by backreading the questions of participants in our liveable-cities chat room. All sorts of pressing issues were brought up — from a Bacoor resident not feeling safe in his own home, to frustrations with a flyover and worsening traffic, to a lack of green spaces in certain Cavite cities.

But one topic that caused a lot of tension was that of water, specifically, PrimeWater. It was the big elephant in the room, as Rappler reporter Dwight De Leon says, not least because the politicians most associated with the issue were not physically present in the kapihan — the Villars.

Rappler Communities user Ahmir was the first to raise the issue, in a community chat we held on April 7 to crowdsource questions to be asked in the kapihan. He described the water shortage in Dasmariñas City, whose local water district entered into a 25-year contract with Villar-owned PrimeWater.

Another Dasmariñas City resident, Je Denolo, running for city councilor, spoke up during the kapihan (coffee place) to say the problems with PrimeWater is the city’s biggest challenge.

Francisco Gabriel “Abeng” Remulla, the 31-year-old gubernatorial candidate who attended the kapihan said if he wins, he would work with Cavite mayors to talk to PrimeWater. 

Read this report by Dwight about how the rest of the discussions went, and what Commission on Audit reports say about how PrimeWater has managed water supply in Cavite.

Watch the Cavite kapihan livestream here, to listen to Remulla, 3rd District representative candidate Marvyn Maristela, and Denolo talk about how they would address the province’s challenges.

Days before the Cavite kapihan, investigative reporter Lian Buan also wrote about PrimeWater issues in Bulacan.

Cavite and Bulacan are the two most vote-rich provinces in the country. Together, the two provinces have 4.6 million voters. Those are enough votes to make or break a senatorial candidate’s slot in the Magic 12. That is more than twice the number of votes obtained by the top party-list winner in the 2022 elections (just over two million votes for ACT-CIS Partylist). 

Will the anger over PrimeWater affect the votes for Camille Villar, who is barely in the winning circle among senatorial candidates?

Water is just among the many gut issues Filipino voters can use as decision points for their vote. Social Weather Stations surveys, commissioned by StratBase Consultancy, show that pushing for solutions to these three issues would convince the greatest number of Filipinos to vote for a senatorial candidate: jobs, health, and agriculture and food security.

If we see this reflected in the votes on May 12, then that is democracy at work. 

Let’s choose 2025 candidates who will improve our quality of life, not worsen it. Let’s vote for candidates who will alleviate our suffering, not cause it. Pick candidates who will use their power, not for selfish interests, but for the good of the Filipino people. ‘Yan ang #AmbagNatin. (That is our contribution.)

[WATCH] From inflation to human rights: Issues 2025 candidates must address

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– Rappler.com

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