‘Lady Councilor uses MIWD issues for her political gains’
The Board of Directors of Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) fired back at Iloilo City Councilor Julienne Baronda who delivered a privilege speech at the regular session of the Sangguniang Panglungsod recently calling them inept and inefficient.
Celso Javelosa, chairman of the board, said Baronda is just using the issue for her candidacy this coming 2010 election. Baronda is believed to run for a vice-mayoralty seat this coming election.
“She is exploiting the August Body in exposing MIWD issues. The data she exposed are not totally correct. She was misinformed,” he stressed.
Baronda earlier lambasted MIWD for being inept and inefficient in its services despite an outstanding loan of P408 million.
She said many people came to her office complaining about the poor services of MIWD.
“People are complaining that they are being charged of higher water bill despite the lack of water supply,” Baronda explained in a radio interview.
Javelosa said the MIWD is doing its duty. “The problems are arising now and then. We intend to be transparent and tried to be correct. We don’t want to be onion-skinned,” Javelosa said.
Warren Palermo of MIWD admitted that indeed there is a low of water supply at present due to high turbidity of water status. This according to him is due to collapsing of soil and trees particularly during Typhoon Frank that brought the worst flooding in the province which affected their operations.
Further, Engr. Edgar Calasara, acting general manager of MIWD, said they are looking for solutions to address the problem.
“We will soon implement our project on bulk water supply in order to provide our consumers sufficient and potable water supply,” Calasara explained.
Meanwhile, Marissa Segovia, one of the members of the board of directors, said they are ready to face the city council in the event they will be called for a committee hearing.