THE Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) has been making headlines due to the bitter conflict between Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and a majority of the incumbent MCWD board, headed by lawyer Jose Daluz. Mayor Rama has long wanted Daluz, a former Cebu City councilor who managed Rama’s successful mayoral election campaign in 2013, unseated as chairman. After several failed attempts, which included the controversial Resolution 35 of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) board, Mayor Rama eventually “fired” three of the five directors. He replaced them with retired Army general Melquiades Feliciano, lawyer Aristotle Batuhan and businessman Nelson Yuvallos. The three took their oath on October 31, just before Mayor Rama left for a long vacation.

The new “board” — including lawyers Earl Bonachita and Danilo Ortiz, both appointed by Rama on Jan. 1, 2023 — elected Feliciano, Rama’s choice, as “chairman.”

General Feliciano is well known in Cebu City for diligently managing the city’s Covid-19 response from mid-June 2020 when thenpresident Rodrigo Duterte placed Cebu City’s pandemic response under the national government. The competence of the retired general is a given. However, it would appear that his appointment to the MCWD board is void from the beginning.

Government Corporate Counsel Rogelio Quevedo has explained that the authority to appoint comes without the power to remove. Not the mayor, not LWUA, but only the water district’s board of directors can remove a director. In other words, there was no vacancy on the MCWD board. The person whom

Feliciano supposedly replaced — Daluz, representing the professional sector — was and remains a member of the MCWD board.

The same goes for the two other “appointments” to the MCWD board: there were no vacancies to fill. In addition, and the most obvious violation of the guidelines set by LWUA in the selection of directors is the appointment of lawyer Aristotle Batuhan as women’s sector representative. LWUA Memorandum Circular 005-16, dated June 6, 2016, states that the representative must be “a respectable citizen of the female gender to represent women’s organizations.”

Batuhan was to take the place of Jodelyn May Seno, who was appointed by the late mayor Edgardo Labella to serve until Dec. 31, 2026. Labella had initially appointed former Cebu City mayor Alvin Garcia, but LWUA rejected the appointment due to the gender requirement. Labella appointed Ms. Seno instead. While Batuhan is a respectable citizen and one of Cebu’s brightest lawyers, he is a man and, therefore, not qualified.

Miguelito Pato, the third person “terminated” by Mayor Rama, was nominated by the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry to represent the business sector. I do not know which business organization nominated Mr. Yuvallos, nor has it been disclosed which profession General Feliciano belongs to. The director who represents the professional sector must be “a holder of a valid [Professional Regulation Commission] or [Supreme Court] issued license to practice a profession to represent the professional association.”

LWUA guidelines state that while the mayor is the appointing authority, directors must have been nominated by their respective organizations, civic clubs, educational institutions or associations, as the case may be. These nominations follow the solicitation by the water district of nominations from the relevant organizations before the terms of incumbent directors expire. The mayor will then pick the new directors from the list of nominees.

This is the process laid out by LWUA. It may not have been followed in the past, but that’s no excuse for not following it now. Mayor Rama’s vision for a “Singapore-like Cebu City” includes the aspect of discipline: people following rules. We expect City Hall officials to lead by example and follow the rules. It is really quite strange to see so many lawyers involved in this MCWD drama, yet the public is left confused about what the law says. In fact, isn’t the legal profession over-represented in the MCWD board, with three of five directors being lawyers? Why not appoint, for instance, a school principal? Or a dentist?

Mayor Rama has the right to ask MCWD to improve. But blaming the gap between demand and supply solely on the water district is unfair. Aside from the population growth within the service area, Metro Cebu has seen booms in the construction of condominium buildings, hotels and other highrise buildings and commercial areas. Water supply improvements over the years have been unable to keep up with the demand of a growing Metro Cebu. We need our local governments and the water district to work together to address the water supply shortage, which includes proper planning and making projections of future demand. Too much politics brings uncertainty and disruption and takes us farther from the goal of securing water for all.