MANILA Water officials are insisting on getting a P195-million development cost refund for the frozen P2-billion Carmen bulk-water project, originally seen as a medium-term answer to the perennial water shortage problem in Metro Cebu.

They said the company is ready to see its “legal remedies” to back up their claim.

But Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) officials do not agree, saying they are ready to pay no more than P100,000 to the Ayala group affiliate for its work done on the proposal and the water permits it  acquired.

Manila Water corporate communications manager Jeric Sevilla said as far as his company is concerned, the unsolicited proposal contract with MCWD is alive, pending formal notice from the water district that it is finally rejecting the proposal.

“Last thing we’ve heard they are ready to go to mediation with the NWRB [National Water Resources Board] but now they’re not. They changed the rule in the middle of the ballgame,” Sevilla told the BusinessMirror.

“We are asking MCWD, if they no longer want the contract to give us a formal communication on the rejection and to refund us for our development cost,” Sevilla said. “We are still hoping they [MCWD] would change their mind, but we will see what legal remedies we have.”

But MCWD general manager Armando Paredes  in a separate interview said the MCWD board could “not see any point” in going to the NWRB considering the vast difference in figures they and Manila Water claim to have.

“Unless Manila Water reconsiders its position, the board sees no point in going to NWRB or back to the negotiating table,” Paredes said.

The project was ready for a price challenge in 2006 when it hit a snag—as Manila Water insisted on getting the refund for its development cost in the event they lost in the price battle.

MCWD along with local government leaders who appoint MCWD board members in Cebu opposed the claim.  

Manila Water, in  2002, made an unsolicited proposal to deliver some 50,000 cubic meters of water daily to Metro Cebu from the Luyang river system in Carmen town in northern Cebu.

Water, under the original timetable, is supposed to be flowing through the pipeline from Carmen town to Metro Cebu by next year.

MCWD is currently producing most of its 120,000 cubic meter daily load through underground wells,  but admits they only serve half of the current pent-up demand of its franchise area.

FLOUR millers have decided to pitch in to help the poor cope with the increase in food prices by launching a program to sell affordable bread in the bagsakan centers of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) has revealed additional fiscal measures being studied by the government to help Filipinos cope with soaring commodity prices.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is eyeing to expand the government’s subsidies to farmers to encourage them to use hybrid-rice seeds to boost palay yields, and eventually stabilize the retail prices of rice in the long term.

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is cool to the proposal creating a separate Office of the Philippine Trade Representative (OPTR) and just called for the strengthening of its international trade-relations unit instead.

MANILA Water officials are insisting on getting a P195-million development cost refund for the frozen P2-billion Carmen bulk-water project, originally seen as a medium-term answer to the perennial water shortage problem in Metro Cebu.

IN 1970, a senator from the United States organized the first Earth Day. His vision was a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment.