LMWD office burglarized: CCTV footage shows directors at scene
TACLOBAN CITY — A burglary took place yesterday dawn at the Leyte Metropolitan Water District (LMWD) main office at Barangay NulaTula in Tacloban City, and at least 10 computer sets, and other documents were taken away by perpetrators.
Footage from the CCTV, according to the police, showed that some directors of the board, who were appointed by Governor Petilla, and other unidentified companions — on board six private vehicles and one wing van — arrived at the LMWD compound at around 2:25 a.m., and forcibly entered the finance and commercial buildings.
There were policemen, from the Regional Public Safety Battalion, guarding or securing the area, but some LMWD employees who were in the compound at the time said these ‘guards’ did nothing, while the Petilla directors, allegedly headed by their chairman Teodoro de Veyra, had their companions destroyed the padlock of the main gate, using a blow torch, and entered the finance building.
According to a police blotter, later filed, testimonies of witnesses and the CCTV footage, de Veyra and directors Iluminado Lantajo Jr. and Aldin Surpia, and finance manager Jeanette Cua, among others, stayed outside the building, while their men allegedly ransacked the office and took away the computers, and documents into the waiting vehicles.
LMWD general manager Pastor Homeres and director Bautista Corpin Jr., a lawyer, said criminal charges are now being prepared to be filed against the Petilla BODs and some suspects who were part of the alleged robbery.
"We are already in the process of filing several criminal and administrative cases against these people," yesterday said Corpin, one of the directors appointed by Tacloban City Mayor Cristina Romualdez on December 11, last year, and who assumed control of the LMWD main office in NulaTula.
Homeres reassured the public—particularly the 36,000 water concessionaires—that operations will not be affected while computers that was ‘illegally taken away’ from the LMWD office and were brought to the Leyte Academic Center in Palo, Leyte, as the temporary office of the Petilla BODs, have backup files and will be restored.
"We, from time to time, make an update on our backup records in the computers. We anticipated this incident so we have been ready for this," Homeres told the media yesterday after the reported robbery or burglary.
The incident that Homeres described as “anticipated,” may be an offshoot to the dispute between the Petilla BODs and the Romualdez BODs, on who are the legal BODs of the LMWD.
De Veyra and his codirectors (Petilla appointed) comprised the LMWD’s BOD for the past 18 years, until they were supposedly replaced by the board of directors, named by Tacloban City Mayor Cristina Romualdez on December 11 last year, and who assumed office at the LMWD in Nula-Tula.
The Petilla BODs however insisted they were the rightful and legal officials of LMWD, but they were barred from entering the LMWD-Nula-Tula office by the Romualdez BODs, who were supported by most of the employees and general manager Pastor Homeres.
A legal battle ensued, and the Petilla BODs filed in court a petition for a temporary restraining order and status quo ante order by the Petilla BODs to stop the Romualdez BODs from acting and functioning as BODs, and officially taking over the LMWD.
However, the court dismissed this in a decision issued on February 2 by Regional Trial Court Judge Leonito Sabandal.
"Wherefore, based on the foregoing discussion, the prayer for the issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order/Status Quo Ante Order filed (by Petilla BOD) cannot be granted, and as prayed for by petitioners (Romualdez BOD), this petition is hereby dismissed," stated the court’s order.