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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Officials rush to avoid water supply crisis
CEBU CITY -- Concerned over the possible loss of water supply, Cordova Municipal Mayor Arleigh Sitoy and Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) officials arranged meetings with a private water supplier and representatives of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).
Mactan Rock Industries Inc. president Antonio Tompar earlier said they will be forced to stop supplying water to Mactan Island if MCWD will make them pay the P14 million as penalty for falling short on deliveries.
For its part, Rufino Ranulfo San Juan IV, department manager for operations at the MEZ administration office, said they intend to meet separately this week officials of both firms to discuss the issue.
San Juan said only a few locators in MEZ 1 in Barangay Ibo will be affected by the water loss while a number of locators in MEZ 2 will be affected, as most of them are largely dependent on Mactan Rock.
As of the first quarter of this year, MEZ 1 has 110 locators while MEZ 2 has 49.
Mactan has been supplying water to Mactan island since 1999, after it signed a ten-year contract with MCWD.
"They should not jump into things and not to look for ways that will arbitrarily affect consumers," Cordova Mayor Arleigh Sitoy said in an interview.
For his part, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña urged officials of Mactan Rock and MCWD to come up with a compromise agreement immediately to avert any disruption in water supply in some parts of Metro Cebu.
Osmeña also called for a revamp within the MCWD management, whose officers he criticized for favoring one company in water supply deals.
"What the management is doing is imposing so many restrictions so Mactan Rock would go bankrupt because they cannot survive under these circumstances," he said.
“That’s good,” Mactan Rock president Antonio Tompar said when told that MCWD will defer collection of short delivery penalties against his company. He earlier warned to shut down operations of Mactan Rock, which will cause water shortage in Lapu-Lapu City and almost total loss in Cordova town.
Tompar, in a long distance phone interview, presented another aspect to the Mactan Rock-MCWD conflict. He said he sees indications that MCWD “is trying” to ease Mactan Rock out of it supply contract.
He alleged that MCWD has plans to put up and operate its own desalination project that certain officials of the water district approached Luis Unchuan, the owner of the property in Suba Panas in Lapu-Lapu City where Mactan Rock’s desalination facility is located.
MCWD general manager Armando Paredes said the water district cannot just bump off the private firm as a private supplier of water as there is an existing contract between the two.
“And we are not also saying that we will not renew the contract with Mactan Rock. Renewal of (supply) contract is a bridge we will cross when we get there,” he told Sun.Star in a separate interview.
Unchuan admitted that MCWD had expressed interest in putting up a desalination facility in the area now occupied by Mactan Rock.
He said MCWD will not lease or buy but rent his almost one-hectare property.
Unchuan told MCWD officials, whom he failed to identify, to finalize their offer. He has yet to get word from the water district.
Paredes admitted that a technical team from MCWD had visited the Unchuan coastal property where Mactan Rock has a desalination plant.
“But it was (part of a) study, merely exploratory, to find more sources of water. Finding other sources of water is part of our mandate. We may even have a project side by side Mactan Rock, that is technically possible,” he said.
But Paredes stressed that, at this time, MCWD does not have any immediate and final plan to put up a desalination facility in the area. He said MCWD has also looked at other areas in Metro Cebu for additional water sources.
Paredes explained that MCWD has decided to defer the imposition of the P14.39 million penalty, even though it sent a demand letter to Mactan Rock last June 21, not only because of the Supreme Court status quo order but also to avoid loss of water in Cordova and some parts of Lapu-Lapu City.
“We don’t want Mactan Rock to do that. We also don’t want to have that situation. We have to consider the public, as well.” Paredes said.
Tompar said MCWD, particularly Paredes, allegedly intends to deprive him of his business. “Kulban gyud ko nila ug kulon (They want to overturn my source of livelihood),” he added.
He cited his project to extract brackish water at the North Reclamation Area in Cebu City to supply a nearby mall and the port area, which MCWD stopped through a cease-and-desist order.
Tompar said he already spent P15 million on the project and has already applied for a water permit from the National Water Resources Board.
Paredes said, though, that the project has yet to be issued a water permit. “Drilling had started but there was no permit yet,” he said.
In a news conference Tuesday, Mayor Osmeña raised his observation that the MCWD management "seems to be killing all the opposition to the Ayalas" and is pushing for the approval of the Ayala-led Carmen bulk water supply deal even if its rate is said to be expensive at P25 per cubic meter.
Osmeña also said he is worried investors will be discouraged to supply water to MCWD because of the latter's actions against Mactan Rock.
If it wants to address the water supply problems, MCWD has to be credible, he said.
Osmeña said the threat of Mactan Rock highlights the need for a revamp at MCWD, which he has long pointed out.
Although the water district has its own board of directors, the mayor said it is still management that acts as boss and which always has the final say on matters affecting operations.
"The board suggested to management to compromise and management does not want to. So why don't they just fire the management? There is a need for a revamp in the management and I just hope the board of directors will put their foot down and create that revamp," he added.
Cordova Mayor Sitoy said public service must be considered first before everything else. He will meet with Tompar on Friday in Manila and MCWD operations division chief Ernesto Delco on Monday. (OCP/LAP/LCR/JPM of Sun.Star Cebu)
(July 19, 2006 issue)
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