MindanaoToday.com | MAWD pats LWUA taking over COWD
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Full intervention on the day-to-day operation and management “may not be the appropriate and outright solution” of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) to the issue the Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) is grappling with lately, according to the Mindanao Association of Water Districts (MAWD).
LWUA, with the Office of Government Corporate Counsel, should exhaust administrative remedies and explore institutional capacity assessment mechanisms on COWD instead, and for the judicial courts to settle the contentious of about P400-million which COWD’s bulk water supplier is demanding payment out of adjusted rates that took effect during the COVID-19 pandemic.
These, in gist, were the collective sentiments of the over a hundred-member-strong MAWD in a seven-page position paper they took turn in signing to cap their second-quarter meeting at the New Dawn Hotel in Cagayan de Oro on Thursday, June 28, this year. There were 86 individuals in attendance.
The crafting of a MAWD position paper was prompted by LWUA Board Resolution No. 34 on May 17, 2024 that approved the full intervention of LWUA into the operations and management of COWD and the designation of interim members of the COWD Board of Directors and an interim general manager.
Lawyer Benjie Espinosa, general manager of City of Koronadal Water District who chairs MAWD’s legal affairs commitee, earlier read the contents of the position paper which included the COWD’s milestones as the country’s first water district and was hall-of-fame awardee in terms of overall performance by the Philippine Association of Water Districts (PAWD).
The MAWD position paper also highlighted Surigao del Sur’s Cantilan Water District (CWD) experience about 12 years ago that requested LWUA to take over its management because it was cash-strapped with past due accounts of P37 million and a non-revenue water of 44 percent. But LWUA opted to financially and technically assist CWD instead of full intervention of its operations and management.
Today, CWD is financially stable and is operating its own bulk water supply facility aside from from spring and deep well sources.
Organized on August 1, 1973 pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 198, the Provincial Water Utilities Act that was issued on May 25, 1973, the COWD has exponentially expanded its pipelines in the city and nearby towns of Misamis Oriental, from 3,500 clients 50 decades ago to 107,787 water connections, as of December 2023.
As of February this year, COWD had an outstanding loan balance with LWUA of P11,920,508.95 with an advance payment of P609,736, under a LWUA-COWD financial asssistance contract.
Nelia Lee, suspended COWD chairperson who was in the MAWD meeting, said that what happened to COWD could happen to any water district in Mindanao and in the country, when LWUA could take over without advance notice or communication.
Lee said there was no order of President Ferdinand Marcos in his speech during a visit in Cagayan de Oro on May 16, this year, for LWUA to take over the COWD because the presidential directive was for a study on short and long-term solutions to the water supply issue. LWUA Board Resolution was issued on May 17.
She said that as stipulated in Presidential Decree No. 198 the takeover would happen only if a water district is in default of its loans, but COWD is not because payment is done every month. “They (LWUA) are abusing their authority,” she said. (MT)
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