By MAE SINGUAY
BACOLOD City — Now is the best time for the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) to appoint an interim general manager for Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa), said Vice Mayor Greg Gasataya.
Prompt intervention by LWUA will prevent the present power play at Baciwa from affecting the water district’s services, Gasataya said.
Gasataya, who served as Baciwa director in 2011, broke his silence on the ongoing “management crisis” in the water district that started when the Board of Directors suspended General Manager Juliana Carbon.
Directors Lawrence Villanueva, Lorendo Dilag and Marichi Ramos voted for Carbon’s preventive suspension over alleged violations.
“LWUA needs to designate an interim general manager now,” he stressed.
More than Baciwa’s employees, “consumers urgently need it,” he added.
Villanueva, Dilag and Ramos appointed Darwin Destacamento as officer-in-charge of the Office of the General Manager pending LWUA’s appointment of an interim general manager.
Directors Ma. Aida Torre, Cecilia Henares and Alfredo Bayanin, however, did not recognize Destacamento’s appointment.
Torre and Henares also voted against Carbon’s suspension.
Defying her suspension, Carbon stayed in her office. She argued that her suspension is null and void, saying Villanueva, Dilag and Ramos cannot make up a quorum for a six-member Board.
But the Villanueva-chaired Board does not recognize Bayanin, a LWUA appointee, as a sixth Board of Directors member.
Gasataya believes the problem at Baciwa can be solved only if LWUA intervenes.
He said that, during their time, there were only five directors, but he acknowledged LWUA’s authority to appoint a sixth member if the water district has outstanding arrears.
As for Carbon, she can be removed as general manager via the proper procedure but not as easily as Baciwa employee, being a civil service career professional, Gasataya said./PN
