Thursday, May 03, 2007 Governor asks court to declare her authority to appoint directors and stop Tomas
CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia is asking the court to rule that the power to appoint members of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) board now belongs to her.
In her petition for declaratory relief, Garcia also asked the court to prohibit Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña from appointing members of the MCWD board of directors.
Last December, Garcia and Osmeña temporarily settled the issue by agreeing that they both sign the appointments.
Garcia’s claim is anchored on the fact that the total active water service connections of MCWD within Cebu City are now below 75 percent, as shown in MCWD records.
She already raised this point last year, but decided to avoid conflict with Osmeña, who also insisted on his authority, by putting both their signatures on last December’s appointments.
In her new petition, Garcia cited Section 3 (b) of Presidential Decree 198 or the Provincial Water Utilities Act of 1973, which governs the creation and operation of MCWD.
The section provides that the person empowered to appoint the MCWD board members “depends upon the geographic coverage and population make-up.”
“In the event that more than 75 percent of the total active water service connections of a local water district are within the boundary of a city, the appointing authority shall be the mayor of that city or municipality, as the case may be, otherwise the appointing authority shall be the governor of the province within which the district is located,” the law states.
Garcia said the court must resolve the issue to avoid future controversies.
Last year, Osmeña had insisted on his authority, saying that Garcia’s claim will be true only if Cebu City is still under the Province.
“We’ll just have to test it in court because that law was made during Martial Law and that law doesn’t say that if you have 20 percent, you have the majority. The law also does not say that the moment the Province consumes 20 percent of the water, it is now the governor who will appoint,” Osmeña earlier said.
Last Dec. 31, Garcia and Osmeña signed the appointments of Leo Pacaña and lawyer Adelino Sitoy as MCWD board members.
But Sitoy filed his certificate of candidacy for Cordova town mayor and was deemed automatically resigned.
His candidacy for this May’s elections caused a vacancy at the MCWD board. (KNT)
