I am not supposed to write about this for obvious reasons, but when Talisay City Mayor Samsam Gullas, who is a very likeable and patient young man, strongly expresses his frustrations on Facebook and on a very sensitive issue yet, he deserves an audience and thus, delicadeza will have to give way.
Samsam was frustrated that he was made to wait for hours, along with members of the city council, his department heads and all the 22 barangay captains in Talisay, for a scheduled meeting with officials of the Metropolitan Cebu Water District Tuesday afternoon at his office in the Talisay City Hall only to find out that no one from the water district was coming.
“I was supposed to meet with officials from MCWD today for our first meeting with the newly created Talisay Water Management Council to discuss issues concerning the dwindling water supply in our barangays,” Samsam wrote.
“But, unfortunately, no one from MCWD appeared in our meeting and I was just informed that the MCWD officials I was supposed to be meeting decided to go on vacation to Singapore and Japan.
“Gipahuwat pa tag pila ka oras and wala pa gyud sila misulti nga mibakasyon sila sa mismong adlaw nga gikasabotan namo (They made us wait for hours without anyone telling us that they went on a vacation on the very day that we agreed upon). Where is the professional courtesy?”
The Talisay City mayor bewailed the fact that while the MCWD draws water from Talisay, they are suffering from a water shortage. “MCWD gets our water resources, profits from it and in return gives nothing back to the City of Talisay,” he moaned.
Samsam said he was ready to revisit the memorandum of agreement between the MCWD and Talisay “to coordinate and collaborate on how to find solutions to the water supply problem in Talisay.”
In fact, he added, it was the MCWD’s idea to maintain closer coordination with his city. “But it seems MCWD is not serious in this need to collaborate.”
Now, revisiting the MOA, which he described as “very disadvantageous to Talisay” has become urgent, he implied, adding that his “legal team are looking for all angles on how we can get from MCWD what Talisay deserves.”
I learned that a top-level team from the MCWD went to see Samsam in his office yesterday morning, but the mayor agreed to meet only with the general manager. So it is probably not true that the water agency’s officials failed to show up for Tuesday’s meeting because they were vacationing either in Singapore or in Japan.
Whatever the reasons, the non-show was still a big mistake. I hope that they were able to patch things up with the Talisay City mayor. The MCWD already lost the goodwill of Liloan Mayor Christina Garcia Frasco. They cannot afford to lose Samsam’s.