Mercado: End or beginning?

Sunday, January 22, 2012

GOV. Gwendolyn Garcia tiptoes into a touchy transition phase. She’s ending three terms as Cebu’s first woman governor. Does national office loom for this sprightly, often-short-fused, 57-year old executive?

“To make an end is to make a beginning,” T.S. Eliot wrote. “The end is where we start from.”

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Elected in 2004 by a thin 7,000 vote lead, Garcia racked up over half-a-million majority in a 2007 re-election shoo-in. That’s a sturdy base, say for the 2013 elections.

Spike Garcia’s coy put-me-downs. “I may go back to private life,” she smiles. That’s par for initial skirmishing. She’s jockeying for a crack at national office. Period.

There are problems, however. Her camp backed Gilberto Teodoro’s bid for the presidency--which crashed. That excludes her from candidates being considered today by President Benigno Aquino III. Popular support for PNoy continues to tower in the high 70s, Social Weather Station reports.

To compensate, Garcia & Co. cozied up to the Marcoses of dictatorship disrepute. Imelda and Gwen, bussing each other, didn’t earn her brownie points. Neither did Brother Nelson’s scoffing at desaparecidos of the martial law regime as “irrelevant.”

A graceful exit, with honor, for the lady governor, would be tarred by a scandal. That’d slam shut doors to voters who seek fresh faces. The end would be an end. Not a beginning.

Yet, that’s what is brewing in the most volatile of all political commodities: water. For our grandchildren’s sake, and to armor-plate her political flanks for 2013--the lady ought to take a hard look at Cebu Bulk Water Supply Development Project.

This project is a commendable effort by the governor to reverse spreading water shortages. Her predecessor, now Rep. Pablo Garcia, was blind to this issue.

Consider the Dec. 2011 decision by the Joint Investment Evaluation and Selection Committee on bids for bulk water. Three groups joined: (a) Metro Manila Water Consortium, headed by Manuel Pangilinan; (b) the Ayala group’s Water Consortium; and (c) Cebu Water Consortium.

Did the committee exercise “due diligence” in the screening? What is the role of Rio Verde Water in the Cebu Consortium?

The Commission on Audit, on Aug. 12, 2008, disallowed payment of P132,414,165 in 13 checks to Rio Verde for bulk water deliveries to Cagayan de Oro Water district.

COA’s Ma. Glenna Digol spelt out reasons for the thumbs down to Engr. Gaspar Gonzales of COWD. There was no valid contract. “RVWC was declared non-responsive and therefore disqualified. The Fraud Audit & Investigation Office of COA, on Nov. 11, 2009, endorsed the report which also held “all COWD Board of Directors liable.”

Cebu’s bidded proposal requires water to be extracted from Luyang River in Carmen. Did any bidder deviate from that criteria and saw two tributaries instead? Is this above board?

Garcia should ask tougher questions. Cebu is one of the country’s most-water stressed provinces. In-migration has quadrupled demands for water here in less than half-a-century.

Cebu City siphons double what its crumbling aquifers can recharge. Surface water hasn’t been tapped, due to Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s refusal to face up to emerging shortages. Osmeña's hiring of a water diviner confirmed this policy collapse.

To regreen a province, scalped down to 2 percent forest cover, is not possible in a decade. But did Garcia manage to end the razing and start the slow climb during her watch? Garcia’s “Ultimo Adios” address, as governor, may provide an answer.