Safe water assured in Leyte amid standoff

TACLOBAN CITY, Jan. 31  -- The Leyte Metropolitan Water District (LMWD) has assured consumers of safe water despite the ongoing standoff that has affected its operation in the past two weeks.

LMWD acting general manager Pastor Homeres said there are enough stocks of chlorine and alum to ensure that distributed water is safe to drink and appropriate for other uses.

“It is good that we procured stocks for three months in anticipation of impacts of weather disturbances and climate change,” Homeres told reporters on Tuesday.

The official said the processes of screening, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection had not been affected by the power struggle.

These processes work together to remove the unwanted substances from water supply distributed to nearly 34,000 water consumers in this city and seven nearby towns.

Homeres feared that once all stocks were consumed, they would be unable to replenish the supply as the board of directors picked by Leyte Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla moved to freeze the water district bank accounts.

Some members of the governing board backed by Petilla have been the signatories of the account deposited at Land Bank of the Philippines Tacloban branch.

“The most affected aspect of our operation would be the maintenance of water treatment plants,” he added.

Approximately 60,000 cubic meters of potable water are delivered to LMWD service areas daily with the main bulk of supply coming from Dagami and Pastrana towns.

The water district also suspended the collection of payment in town halls as they shut down its online system set up in its office in Nula Tula village here.

The standoff began on Jan. 17 when the new set of board of directors appointed by Tacloban Mayor Cristina Romualdez entered the LMWD office, saying they had the right to govern the office.

Majority of LMWD’s 500 employees, including Homeres, withdrew their support from the officials backed by the governor and recognized the authority of new officers to rule the water district.
Since then, the board of directors appointed by Petilla had been prevented from entering the premises of the water district.

The provincial government-backed officials and 22 employees have set up a temporary office at the Leyte Academic Center.

On Dec. 11, Romualdez appointed the new set of officers for LMWD after the Supreme Court handed down a decision declaring Presidential Decree (PD) 198 unconstitutional.

The decree mandates that a local government that has 75 percent of water consumers of a water district has the authority to manage the agency.

A case elevated to the Supreme Court that declared PD 198 unconstitutional, ruled that a city component that did not vote for provincial officials needed only 51 percent of the total number of water consumers to have the authority to manage the Water District.

The city government said that based on the 2014 LMWD published report, 67.5 percent of the water district’s consumers were in the regional capital.

The mayor said that her decision to appoint the board of directors stemmed from the case of Cebu Mayor Michael Rama, Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) et. al. vs. Home Gilbert Moises.

The provincial government argued that the High Court’s decision on MCWD case was not applicable to LMWD since the latter was created by the provincial government through Provincial Board Resolution No. 52 adopted on February 19, 1975. (SQM/PNA)