What’s happening in the MCWD front?
For our talk show “Straight from the Sky” we bring you the newest Cebu City police chief, Police Colonel Engelbert Soriano, who comes from a family of policemen. Though he didn’t come from the police academy, he took courses on Traffic in Manila. This makes him quite eligible for the job of police chief in Cebu City where traffic needs professional help.
Soriano was officially assigned as police chief only last December, so it’s quite timely that we bring him to you in our talk show tonight on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.
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Over the weekend, we had very strong rains due to a tropical depression in Mindanao, which means water for Cebu City. So once more, we are intrigued by the news reports that last week, former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña sued Mayor Edgardo Labella and Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) Chief Jeci Lapus for their role in dismissing the directors of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) before their terms were finished.
Lapus declared in his Dec. 5, 2019 letter to Mayor Labella that the power to appoint directors didn’t give the power to remove them. The power to appoint carries automatically the power to dismiss, that doesn’t hold true in the case of water districts, the letter said. The Provincial Water Utilities Act of 1973 expressly states an exception to the rule.
A few days ago I read this news report saying, “To lessen the water “supply and demand” gap, MCWD will develop several in-house production wells and would receive over 23,000 cubic meters per day in the first half of 2020. In an official statement, MCWD said it is actively securing additional volume to improve the service hours in areas where supply is no longer available for 24 hours. “The water district is prioritizing in-house wells in areas where the demand for water is high, since these are easy and fast to develop and are not easily affected by the dry spell as well,” said MCWD acting general manager Stephen Yee. So can MCWD do this without a clear group of decision makers who cannot work in the MCWD Board?
At this moment, the demand for water in Metro Cebu is projected to be at 580,000 cubic meters per day and MCWD’s daily production is only at 233,000 cubic meters. MCWD is also expecting a decreasing trend in the daily production starting this month when the rainfall volume is expected to fall below the average as summer nears.
This new in-house MCWD production wells are expected to yield a total of 3,000 cubic meters per day that will benefit consumers in barangays Sambag 1 and Capitol Site in Cebu City, Cubacub in Mandaue City, and San Isidro in Talisay City. MCWD is also expecting private bulk water suppliers to start delivering water to identified points by June. While this may be positive news from MCWD, it is really a band-aid solution to our water problem that needs a full-blown surgical operation. MCWD needs a visionary who can solve our water problems for the next 50 years.
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Now for some great news; former Metro Rail Transit Line 3 general manager Al Vitangcol III and his uncle-in-law Arturo Soriano have been sentenced to up to 16 years in prison by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court which found them guilty of purposely concealing their relationship in order to allow service provider Philippine Trans Rail Management and Services Corp. (PH Trams) to bag a multimillion-dollar deal for MRT-3 maintenance. We already wrote on this issue a long time ago, but at least we did not realize that the Sandiganbayan was on top of this situation to hold them accountable and this is the result of their findings.
Apparently, the court’s Third Division found Vitangcol and Soriano, one of the incorporators of PH Trams, guilty of violating Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and Section 47 of RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act. They were sentenced to a minimum of six years to a maximum eight years imprisonment for each offense or a total of 12 to 16 years. They were also perpetually banned from holding public office.
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