"For the employees, allowances, fringe benefits or ‘perks' as they would want to call it, were not the issues at hand inside the Cagayan de Oro City Water District (COWD).
"Likewise, the newspaper is not the venue for all these grievances but has to be addressed accordingly to the office of the Department of Budget (DBM) and the Commission on Audit (COA). In many occasions, Mr. Joel A. Baldelovar, with repetitions, kept on maligning the integrity of the employees' crusade through print and media. I guess it would be fair enough to air our side if not give him the dose of his own medicine.
"Allow me to introduce Director Baldelovar, with a bachelor's degree in AB-Mass Communications and rose from the ranks of Bombo Radyo, appointed by the city mayor in January 2005 as director and currently the chairman of the COWD Board of Directors. He is the same individual who claimed that they took the lead in 2009 to exempt themselves from receiving all those ‘perks'. Ironically, he is the same official among some other directors who approved and enjoyed all those bonuses by virtue of their board resolutions. Resolutions passed were not only unlimited but self-serving from car loans, appointments of their own children, P4,500 per diem for every day of travel, etc. Of course, be it known that various issues involve different set of directors and may not apply to all its members at all times and in all issues. COWD Board of Directors may come and go but has continued receiving the very questionable ‘Gratuity Pay' which Mr. Baldelovar failed to enumerate. The last time a COWD director had received such pay was in December 2008.
"Contrary to his self-acquired recognition, if not ‘pogi' points of exempting to said ‘perks' is the truth of the matter - Resolution No. 2004-006 issued by the Commission on Audit on September 14, 2004. It states, ‘This commission has consistently disallowed these benefits on the ground that water district directors are prohibited from receiving compensation other than the per diems mandated under Section 13 of P.D. 198... and, "The Supreme Court in G.R. No. 147248-49 entitled Baybay Water District vs. COA dated January 23, 2002 had affirmed the disallowances holding that the law clearly indicates that directors of water districts are authorized to receive only the per diem authorized by the law and no other compensation or allowance in whatever form.
"On same resolution, it is very important to note that it does not totally disallow said benefits to the employees of a district but subject to the established policy on "non-diminution in pay" and to the conditions set forth by DBM dated April 27, 2001 on the continued grant of such. Retaliation or not, the COWD Board has stripped off all the benefits due for the employees while pretending to be the advocates of such change and get the credit from the public after lavishly enjoying the same. If indeed they would want to set themselves as examples, then why only implement those steps in 2009, surprisingly at the height of the very sensitive issues of the Bulk Water Supply Agreement tainted with alleged irregularities and anomalies, if not fraud. With propriety, we will inquire officially on these disallowances from proper agencies and certainly not on the streets.
"Again, to set the record straight, the employees are not protesting on the streets on lost benefits and allowances but are consistent of questioning the propriety, if not irregularities, of policies passed by the board of directors specifically on the controversial Bulk Water Supply Contract, the questionable Lwua intervention and the pending selection of a General Manager.
"Ricochet or so, the public deserves to know the truth of the COWD case."
Reonil Joseph J. Linaac
E-mail: tabletalkgsd@yahoo.com
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