HISTORY OF BAGUIO WATER DISTRICT

      The Baguio City Council, in a special meeting held on 14 April 1975, passed resolution numbered 37-75 creating the Baguio Water District effective 1 July 1975.

    BWD started out as a cash – strapped water system. To compound its woes, it inherited an aging water system from the defunct Department of Public Services (DPS) where lines are so deteriorated they simply could not be repaired any longer but rather a full system replacement is required.  As funding is one of its primordial concerns, the very first resolution (BWD Resolution numbered 1-75) passed by the newly constituted Board of Directors of the BWD is a request from the City Council and Hon. Mayor Luis L. Lardizabal  to appropriate the amount of Php500,000.00 as starting operational expenses of the District.   However, as the City of Baguio was likewise in a state of financial woes, only Php100,000.00 was granted.

     The District was able to obtain a loan from the Local Water Utilities Administration on 1 August 1975.  While officially the BWD was founded on 1 July 1975, the Conditional Certificate of Conformance (CCC) was issued by the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) more than a month later, on 28 August 1975 after the district has documented its schedule of improvements – a requirement to determine the district’s commitment to improve the domestic water service to the public.

     The corporate charter of the BWD – as well as all of water districts for that matter –went through a final imprimatur from the Supreme Court in 1992.  Henceforth, they would now become Government Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC), subject to the regulations of the Commission on Audit (COA), Civil Service Commission (CSC), and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).