Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) in Magallanes St., Cebu City / via Google Maps
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Acting Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia is ready to appoint new members to the Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) Board amid reports of two directors repeatedly skipping board meetings.
Garcia said that if vacancies would arise and positions would need to be filled, he would be prepared to act.
Garcia said this after revelations that two current members, Earl Bunachita and Danilo Ortiz, had consistently failed to attend to their duties.
During the recent groundbreaking ceremony of water expansion projects in Barangay Guba and Agsungot, MCWD Chairman Joey Daluz publicly addressed the issue.
He said that the board was now operating with just three of its five members, as Bunachita and Ortiz had ceased to participate in meetings.
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In response, Garcia said that he was ready to appoint replacements as soon as the positions would be officially declared vacant.
He acknowledged that while he held the authority to make appointments, the process of declaring vacancies must be handled internally by the MCWD board, meaning he could not intervene until the board itself would confirm the absence of these members as a formal vacancy.
“Once they declare it vacant, we are prepared to appoint,” Garcia said.
However, he admitted that, as of now, he had not identified any potential candidates for the positions.
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The tensions within the MCWD Board trace back to October 2023 when Bunachita and Ortiz aligned themselves with suspended Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s appointment of new board members—retired General Melquiades Feliciano, Lawyer Aristotle Batuhan, and businessman Nelson Yuvallos.
This led to a split within the board, with Bunachita and Ortiz refusing to recognize Daluz as the legitimate chairman.
Rama’s appointments triggered an impasse. It prompted intervention from the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), which appointed an interim board.
However, the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) later issued a ruling in favor of Daluz’s continued leadership of the board, a decision that has yet to resolve the board’s internal conflicts.