Agents of the Optical Media Board (OMB) in coordination with the Police Regional Office-7 raided and seized 245 sacks containing pirated DVDs and VCDs along the Fuente Osmeña circle. Notable among them is the Du Building whose owners allow their alleys to be rented for this illegal trade. The raiding team seized some 73,500 pirated disks. I can only hope that these seized items are still intact. The last time that the PNP Regional Office had a raid, when the truck carrying the contraband entered Camp Sergio Osmeña, PNP personnel were running after it, trying to get a piece of the pirated materials. What an embarrassment!
Anyway, I walked up to Fuente Osmeña and yes, not a single establishment was selling those illegal items but all the racks for the display of these DVDs and VCDs were still there waiting to be filled with the contraband goods when the "all-clear" signal is given. I'm willing to bet that in a few days, those pirates will be back on the streets selling their illegal stuff. I'm also willing to bet that the confiscated pirated DVDs and VCDs now in police custody will not be the same number that they hauled in after the raid. After all, a lot of our police couldn't care any less if one confiscated pirated movie ends up in his house.
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Yesterday, The Freeman featured on page four a story entitled "Scarcity of Water Hits Metro Cebu". This story should have been in the front page, but then we Cebuanos really couldn't care any less until the water from our faucets no longer gives any water but hot air, that's when we start to howl, when it's already too late! This has been the situation since March but funny, we Cebuanos are not looking for ways to find the solution to this problem. We're just too focused on what's happening in the political arena to think about our water woes!
No, I'm not trying to blame our editorial department for not giving the water issue any importance. We did feature on the front page a few days back that the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) already threw out the proposal of the Ayala Carmen Water project. But did any of our water consumers howl that MCWD threw out the only water deal on the table without any new prospects? This only means that they don't really care if their consumers run out of water. What about the prospects for new consumers to get their water supply? That is apparently fast fading away.
Well, the truth has finally come out, that due to the excessive summer heat we are now experiencing an unprecedented scarcity of water. Sure, MCWD is asking its consumers to conserve water but that is already a given, they always do that. But there are available sources of water just waiting to be tapped, where MCWD spent and borrowed more than a hundred million that we consumers have to repay through our water bills. Am referring to the water pumps that MCWD installed in the Town of Compostela a few years ago yet not a drop has come from that place owing to the fact that an infamous businessman who was recently granted a Special Award or recognition by the City of Cebu had been blocking this project.
It is time for MCWD to come clean and tell us consumers the whole damn story about what went wrong with the Compostela pumps and why they didn't study this project thoroughly before implementing it, only to be rebuffed by then Mayor Antonio Dangoy. I talked about this with former MCWD Chairman Ruben Almendras but he wasn't willing to go out in public to point out who was the culprit behind this problem.
Meanwhile, more subdivisions are sprouting to address the housing shortage in Cebu City which then brings us to ask, where in heaven's name will these new subdivisions get their water? If I could have my way, I'd put a moratorium in new subdivisions until MCWD says that they have already solved the problem in Compostela or have struck a deal with another water firm. The problem here is, there are now too many interested parties trying to strike a deal with MCWD, names of businessmen who know next to nothing about the water business.
What we don't need at this time another carpetbagger searching for a quick buck! We need firms that have a long experience in getting water at a lower cost. But now that they have thrown out the Ayala deal it is incumbent upon MCWD to revitalize negotiations to operate the wells in Compostela and if they can't do so, then blow this thing out in the open and expose the greedy businessman who refuses to allow the MCWD wells to flow. I understand that Mayor Antonio Dangoy lost his reelection bid to Ritchie Wagas. Let's hope that the new Compostela Mayor Ritchie Wagas will move fast to help MCWD operate its pumps from their wells in Compostela.
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