[Vantage Point] The PrimeWater curse: When contracts trump the public

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If PrimeWater's contract survives but the people suffer, the system has failed

The law exists to protect the public, not to starve them. Yet, as PrimeWater secures its victories in court, the people of San Jose del Monte are left with dry taps and empty promises, forcing out a damning question: Who does our legal system truly prioritize —corporate balance sheets or human lives? 

We are taught in school that contracts are the sacrosanct lifeblood of commerce — that investors demand certainty, and governments must honor their word to maintain economic credibility. 

That principle is fair, but water is not a mere commodity; it is life. A public utility concession does not exist simply to guarantee corporate returns; it exists to fulfill a sacred public obligation. 

When contract law clashes with public survival, the law must give meaningful weight to both. In San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, however, the scales of justice are dangerously warped. 

My inbox has overflowed with furious letters from residents who feel they have been taken hostage by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Las Piñas. By granting their water provider PrimeWater a preliminary injunction, the court has nullified the local government’s takeover of PrimeWater — an intervention the city deemed necessary to arrest San Jose del Monte’s worsening water crisis. I share my readers’ anguish. With this ruling, the court effectively decided that a corporation’s potential “irreparable financial harm” matters more than the agonizing reality of a parched community.

This legal battle began when the city government terminated its joint venture with PrimeWater and assumed interim control to protect thousands of households. PrimeWater immediately swung its legal machinery into motion, demanding a temporary restraining order to block the takeover and safeguard its revenues. Its early efforts failed. The RTC of Bulacan flatly rejected PrimeWater’s initial bid, ruling that the public injury of a worsening water crisis far outweighed contractual claims. Yet, by shopping for relief in the RTC of Las Piñas — a known bailiwick of the Villar family — PrimeWater finally secured the victory it wanted.

Legally, an injunction is meant to preserve the status quo while litigation runs its course. But to me, preserving the status quo in issues concerning public utilities is an active choice to prolong human suffering. 

PrimeWater’s claimed injury is purely financial: it can be measured, calculated, and compensated in pesos and cents. The public’s injury is immeasurable: tracked instead by citizens waking up before dawn to hoard water in drums, by suspended school classes, crippled hospitals, and shuttered businesses. These hardships do not register on a financial spreadsheet, but they inflict a crushing economic and social toll on the public every single day. 

The facts shared to me by desperate residents paint a pejorative picture of corporate negligence, where roughly 250,000 residents — one-third of the city’s population — are trapped in a perpetual water crisis. 

Although PrimeWater reportedly committed P6.8 billion in capital investments when its joint venture began in 2018, it has allegedly invested only about P748 million. While the local water district’s net income collapsed, PrimeWater’s profits soared (see table below) even as nearly half of the treated water is lost to leaks and broken infrastructure, and facilities sit abandoned and decaying. 

To prevent total catastrophe, I was told that the local government is forced to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ pesos deploying water tankers, effectively subsidizing the failure of a private monopoly that still has the audacity to send their customers a monthly bill. 

Lucio Co’s acquisition of PrimeWater through Crystal Bridges Holding Corp. from the Villar Group in December 2025 should have been a turning point. Sadly, it has become a masterclass in corporate evasion. (READ: [Vantage Point] Lucio Co’s PrimeWater bet: The price of trust)

New ownership promised fresh capital and stronger governance. Yet, city officials still have not received any concrete rehabilitation roadmap, firm investment commitments, and timelines for relief. 

An ownership change without an accompanying recovery plan is not a rescue mission. It is a corporate shell game designed to transfer contractual rights while abandoning public responsibility. Corporate governance cannot be divorced from operational reality. If a water and wastewater company cannot deliver clean, reliable, and affordable water, it has no business operating. 

This is not a call for courts to succumb to public demonstrations or ignore the law, as PrimeWater has every right to defend its position. But regulators, judges, and policymakers must be able to satisfactorily answer one fundamental question: When a public utility contract receives immediate judicial protection despite years of providing rotten service, what purpose is the law actually serving? 

If a contract survives but the people suffer, the system has failed. A concession agreement is not an end in itself, but a legal instrument intended to achieve a positive public outcome.  The citizens of San Jose del Monte are not asking the courts to abandon the rule of law; they are demanding that the law protect more than just ink on paper. 

The true measure of justice here is not whether a water concessionaire survives legal scrutiny, but whether its customers can get potable, round-the-clock water straight from their taps. – Rappler.com

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