Loot sued for closing Tapilon waterworks system

CEBU, Philippines - Officials of the Tapilon Rural Waterworks and Sanitation Inc. (TARWASA) have filed a petition for mandatory injunction before the Regional Trial Court in Bogo City against Daanbantayan Mayor Maria Luisa Loot after the official issued a cease and desist order against the water utility.

Claro Benatiro, chairman of the barangay waterworks system, asked the court to direct Loot and the municipal officials to allow the waterworks system to continue its operation and return its control to them.

Benatiro also prayed that the court will direct the deployment of policemen from the Police Regional Office-7 headquarters in Tapilon to assist the court sheriff in the enforcement of the order should the court grant its petition.

Benatiro likewise asked the court to direct Loot and other municipal officials of Daanbantayan to comply with the December 4, 2009 order from the court to unlock the building where the replacement motor pump and other repair gadgets of the waterworks system are kept.

Loot ordered the closure of the waterworks system on April 19, 2011 citing its failure to secure the necessary permits from the municipal government.

Loot claimed that the water system lacks the certificate of franchise from the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), the government agency tasked to supervise the operation of rural waterworks and sanitation associations and also failed to secure franchise from the National Water Resources Board (NWRB).

According to Loot, the absence and lack of the foregoing mandatory requirements, as required by law, are clear grounds for the closure of said waterworks system. Close to 1,000 families in Barangay Tapilon were forced to get their water supply from the wells following the closure of the said waterworks system.

The waterworks counsel, Yolando Ursal, said that as a duly LWUA-registered rural waterworks and sanitation association since 1992, it is exempted from the local imposition of requirements such as municipal licenses, permits and taxes as provided for under Executive Order 577, an Act Creating Rural Waterworks Development Corporation of 1980.

“What the law does not require, the respondent Daanbantayan municipal officials cannot impose, otherwise the exercise of such power, without any legal basis, is despotic, unlawful and arbitrary,” Ursal said.

Ursal also argued that “the absence of franchise in all rural waterworks association of the municipality, including TARWASA, does not ipso facto divest the latter of its juridical personality and legal existence since all rural waterworks association created under Executive Order 577 are exempt from securing a franchise.” –(FREEMAN)