Amid the persistent challenges surrounding water security and safety in the country, IDE Technologies, a water desalination firm based in Israel, wants to introduce its technologies to enhance water access and sustainability in Philippine agriculture and other sectors.

Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss said on Wednesday, Feb. 14, that they are ready to share the best practices with Manila to address water-related situations through recyclable solutions.

“Agricultural productivity, food security, [these are a few of the] very high agenda of President Marcos,” he said. 

Fluss added that President Marcos had already requested Israeli technologies to help with the agricultural developments in the Philippines and spoken with the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) Undersecretary Carlos Primo David on the local water management.

Having acknowledged the current challenges the Philippines faces regarding water, Israel-based companies like IDE have been tapped to venture into possible collaborations with both the government and private sector.

“Israel has been active in its agriculture sector, and we have been doing our efforts in pushing Israeli companies to help the [Philippine irrigation system,]” he shared.

IDE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Alon Tavor presented their strategies to solve their nation’s water crisis, which in turn, could be useful for the Philippines.

Recycling technology and having local water management are said to be two of the valuable actions the Philippines can take to ensure water security.

This strategy has been used by Israel since the trending decline of natural water through the years. For them, desalination became a way to reduce reliance on rainfall since their climate doesn’t generate that much precipitation.

Tavor noted that water consumed by households has since then become recycled and reused for irrigation.

“Israel is recycling 86 percent of its domestic water,” he said. “We don’t take out the nutrients [from domestic water]. We recycle, remove contaminants, and allow nutrients to water crops.”

Ensuring safety in consumer-based water

Although IDE technologies have yet to coordinate with the private sector, the ambassador mentioned that some local companies have been implementing Israeli technologies in water treatment.

Last year, Tubig Pilipinas Group, Inc. partnered with Israel-based WaterMatic International for a Cebu bulk water supply project.

In terms of addressing non-revenue water (NRW) situations, Tavor shared that their system loss in piping has been around 5 to 10 percent, dubbing it as one of the lowest water losses in the world.

Despite numerous local private companies already seeking IDE solutions, both Tavor and Fluss acknowledged the need to expedite partnership processes.

According to them, it might take two years to pursue a medium-sized treatment plant, and three years for larger plants to come into the Philippines.

“It shouldn’t take too much time… It’s about making decisions and making sure that regulatory and decision-making [are processed timely,]” Tavor emphasized.

“Water projects would start in a few hundreds of thousands of dollars for small projects, but it can go to millions [of dollars] for the bigger ones,” he added.

While Israeli water projects would take several approvals before being implemented in the Philippines, IDE hopes to expand its services locally in the future.