LMWD GM files robbery, coercion raps
TACLOBAN CITY — Robbery and grave coercion charges were filed at the City Prosecutors Office in Tacloban City yesterday afternoon by Leyte Metropolitan Water District (LMWD) general manager Pastor Homeres against the Governor Petilla-appointed board of directors.
The BODs, headed by their chairman Teodoro De Veyra, and 14 other LMWD employees were accused of robbery, allegedly committed at dawn of January 5, when at least 20 computer sets and other documents of the water district were ransacked from the LMWD main office at Barangay Nula-tula in Tacloban City, and carted away, using six vehicles and a wing van, to their so-called temporary office set up in Palo town.
Homeres, assisted by his lawyers, personally filed the cases against De Veyra, and directors Iluminado Lantajo, Aldin Surpia, Dr. Alice Blas, and Teresa Montubig.
Police said CCTV footage caught them, and some employees, destroying the main gate of the LMWD main office, forcibly entering the department offices, and taking away the LMWD computers and documents.
Homeres, in an interview later with reporters, said robbery and grave coercion cases are among the criminal and administrative charges to be filed against the Petilla BODs.
The contention of the de Veyra camp was hinged on their insistence that they are the legitimate BODs of LMWD, and that the directors, newly appointed by Tacloban Mayor Cristina Romualdez, have no legal bases to assume the posts as BODs and occupy the Nula-Tula office of the water district.
The camp of de Verya meanwhile filed a case of usurpation of authority against the Romualdez BODs-consisting of their chairman Roberto Muñoz, lawyers Sharilee Gaspay Mauro, Bautista Corpin Jr., and Jenny Lyn Polistico Manibay, and Bernardita Valenzuela.
Prosecutor Lemuel Modesto already subpoenaed the Romualdez BODs to answer the charges against them.
Meanwhile, Muñoz yesterday told the media that the confirmation of their appointments as LMWD's new directors, by the Local Water Utilities Administration, will be released on Tuesday, adding that they (Romualdez BODs) had already complied with the LWUA requirements.
"It will be official on Tuesday-the approved confirmation of our appointments (as BODs) because we already and completely submitted the lacking requirements, as directed in the letter of LWUA Administrator Jeci Lapus," Muñoz added.