Finally, desalinated water?
While Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) Board of Directors chairman Joel Mari Yu challenged the termination order by Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella saying their terms were supposed to end on December 31, 2022, Yu has resigned in a surprising twist as reported in The FREEMAN yesterday. MCWD general manager Jose Eugenio Singson Jr. has also tendered his resignation effective Nov. 1, 2019.
This development came as Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) announced that it has partially taken over the MCWD, saying there is a need to appoint members of the interim board following the termination of the previous board. LWUA appointed Atty. Roberto San Andres, LWUA Legal Department manager; Aileen Dela Veyga, acting deputy administrator for Institutional Development Service; and Cristina Marcelino, manager of Utilities Development Division for Visayas as interim board of directors for MCWD.
In a press statement, MCWD said “Under Sec. 12 of Presidential Decree No. 198, vacancies in the Board of Directors occurring more than six months before the expiration of their terms, the remaining directors shall, within 30 days, serve notice or request the secretary of the district for nominations.” But it seems that the rest of the MCWD board did not resign. This means that Augustus Pe Jr. has been appointed as acting chairman of the board as Joel Yu has already quit the MCWD chairmanship. In my book, Pe is nothing but a political appointee of then mayor Tomas Osmeña.
Meanwhile, assistant general manager Stephen Yee was named acting general manager to carry out the duty of supervising and controlling the maintenance and operation of water district facilities and appoint personnel as per Presidential Decree 198. So you can expect a lot of confusion in the coming weeks coming from the remaining MCWD board members.
We also read in another news report that the MCWD board has terminated the unsolicited proposal of the Metro Pacific Investments Corp.-Aboitiz consortium for the construction of a desalination plant in Lapu-Lapu City. This was announced by Singson before his resignation. He said the board had stopped negotiating with the consortium two weeks before Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella terminated the services of five board members.
The proposal, Singson said, was declared terminated as MCWD and the consortium failed to reach an agreement. I knew of this proposal when we had a meeting last month with Cosette Canilao of Aboitiz InfraCapital. I don’t know what the Aboitiz consortium would do now that their proposal has been rejected.
Mind you, I know that the Aboitiz consortium offered to provide 100,000 cubic meters of water per day. It set the price per cubic meter of water at P89. However, this earned disapproval from Labella, who said it is expensive because it was through a desalination plant. But I find it strange that Mr. Singson said that MCWD started accepting last Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019 solicited proposals from firms for the construction of a desalination plant. So in the end, MCWD still had to opt for getting water through a desalination plant. At this point, allow me to ask whatever happened to the Mananga River Dam proposal? What about the Malubog Dam plan? Would that bring cheaper water to Metro Cebu if properly explored? Abangan!
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I was about to congratulate the Philippine National Police (PNP) officers in the Province of Cebu for the quick solution of the J Centre Mall robbery last Saturday evening. Then came the news that the Commission on Human Rights-7 wanted to check on whether the robbers who were killed were not summarily executed. To be totally honest about it, those robbers carried high-powered weapons and therefore considered armed and dangerous. Plus the fact that most of them were probably remnants of the old Kuratong Baleleng gang. Then I dare say that the police acted correctly!
Cebu Provincial Police Office Director Roderick Mariano has denied allegations that they intentionally killed four of five robbery suspects they arrested in Bogo City last Saturday. Mariano said there is no truth to allegations that their operatives extra-judicially killed the four suspected robbers upon their arrest at the Polambato Wharf in Bogo City just hours after they allegedly robbed three pawnshop outlets and a money changer inside the J Centre Mall in Mandaue City. I salute the police for their quick work in this robbery!
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