BY MAE SINGUAY
BACOLOD City – All her bags are packed but she’s not ready to go.
Suspended Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa) general manager Juliana Carbon confirmed she has prepared for the arrival of the interim general manager.
She said she is waiting for official communication from the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) as to who and when her replacement would be reporting to Baciwa.
Baciwa director Marichi Ramos appeared to have the information. She said the interim general manager would be Mario Macatangay and he is expected to show up at the Baciwa office today.
Carbon, however, said she will continue to report because she remains a Baciwa employee.
“I am still receiving salary from Baciwa so I must report to the office,” she said.
Carbon said she may occupy a space in the administrative building, stay in her office or outside the general manager’s office.
She also insisted that the 30-day preventive suspension issued to her on July 30 by three Baciwa directors – Ramos, Lawrence Villanueva and Lorendo Dilag – in relation to the administrative case filed against her by Ramos was invalid.
It is because of this, she said, that she decided to stay in her office.
Carbon said she welcomes the appointment of an interim general manager as this may somehow ease the tension between the directors and the Baciwa management.
Carbon also shrugged off the threat of Dilag, Ramos and Villanueva to sue her for illegal detention during an Aug. 19 incident at the Baciwa building
“I never instructed anyone to detain them. They were the ones who forcibly entered the Baciwa premises even if the employees were shouting at them to leave the boardroom. How can they say that was arbitrary detention,” she said.
Villanueva, Dilag and Ramos claimed they were detained for almost two hours in the boardroom together with Ramos’ lawyer Leo Irving Sedonio when enraged employees staged a noise barrage outside./PN
