New appointees for the PNP, traffic, and MCWD

It seems that Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella has issued notices of termination against five members of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) board of directors after dissatisfaction from a majority of the water utility’s consumers over the utility firm’s services for the past few months. Termination notices were given to MCWD officials led by Chairman Joel Mari Yu; former Cebu City councilors Procopio “Coping” Fernandez and Augustus “Jun” Pe Jr.; former city attorney Ralph Sevilla; and lawyer Cecile Adlawan, who serves as board secretary.

Well, the die has been cast! At this point, I would like to warn Mayor Labella to make sure that the people he would replace in MCWD are not political allies who know nothing about our water issues or even realize that we are not having a water crisis. These are times that politics must take a backseat to people who know our water problems. Let’s face the reality today that our former politicians gave too much importance on the economic development of Cebu, but never really cared for Cebu’s water needs since most of us get our water from underground sources. But today, these sources are starting to dry up due to over extraction of these wells, plus many of these wells have nitrite infestation.

So Mayor Labella better make sure that he doesn’t fill up the MCWD with another bunch of political allies. We learned that Mayor Labella attached a letter from the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), which supposedly gave its blessing to the city mayor to initiate the termination of the five board members. At this point, let me say that Mr. Joel Mari Yu is one person who knows our water problems, but now that he has been removed, I would like to know who would replace him. Let me just say that I will wait for the names that will be appointed into MCWD.

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Still on issues pertaining to the City of Cebu, I only recently learned that Mayor Labella has created the Traffic Management Coordinating Committee (TMCC) through an executive order, which is supposedly led by City Attorney Jerome Castillo, Councilors Renato Osmeña Jr., Dave Tumulak, Philip Zafra and Tony Cuenco, with Land Transportation Office-7 Director Vic Caindec, Land Transportation and Franchising Board-7 Director Eduardo Montealto. Fiscal Raul Cristoria, City Administrator Floro Casas Jr., City Attorney Rey Gealon, and Public Information Officer Razel Cuizon.

If you ask me, there are just too many members of this traffic committee, and I believe in that old saying, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” As the head of CITOM years ago, I dare say that we didn’t have too many members because things have to be decided to improve traffic, not to be discussed no end in a traffic committee where very few members have learned how traffic is managed or works.

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Philippine National Police chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde last Sunday bade goodbye to the PNP, exhorting its members to “carry on in the service” and not get demoralized by controversies. The PNP Chief issued his resignation just days before his retirement, which gives us an idea that this man must be above board. Of course all this is in the midst of allegations that he was a protector of “ninja cops,” the term for policemen engaged in recycling seized illegal drugs in 2013 when he was police director in Pampanga. But these were times when the Philippines was becoming a narco political nation. At this point, no one has really presented any damning evidence against Albayalde.

Albayalde continued to claim innocence over the “ninja cops” issue, now being investigated by the Senate, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of Justice. He also noted that he was never charged, even if he was administratively relieved from his post as provincial director of the Pampanga police in 2013 over the now controversial anti-illegal drug operation by his men.

Incidentally, the Philippine National Police (PNP) officially appointed Police Brigadier General Valeriano De Leon as the new chief of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7). De Leon is the current chief of PNP Firearms Explosives Office (FEP) and a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1989.

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