Sixty employees of the Bacolod City Water District were terminated at the end of December following a joint venture agreement (JVA) between BACIWA and PrimeWater Infrastructure Corp. (PrimeWater).
PrimeWater took over the operations of BACIWA on November 16.
On December 29, BACIWA acting general manager Michael Soliva issued an office order that the 60 employees have been declared “redundant” by the Board, in a resolution on December 23, and will be terminated effective December 31.
The terminated employees were also instructed to turn over their respective accountability and are prohibited from occupying and loitering in Baciwa offices except to process their clearances in relation to their separation from the service.
The BACIWA Employees Union, in a statement, said: “We are not leaving, we will not give up.”
The union said that the employees who opted to remain employed by BACIWA were declared redundant after they declined the two options offered to them – apply for employment by PrimeWater as a private entity or accept the early retirement incentive plan.
The early retirement option, according to the union, was “utterly inappropriate, perhaps even illegal but certainly immoral,” adding that they see it as “little more than a bribe to entice government workers to end their public service.”
“We stand firm in our belief that the grounds cited by the Board of Directors for our supposed ‘redundancy’ have no basis in fact and in law and relies on the opinion of an agency which, because it was party to what, for all intents, was the surrender of public service to private interests, can hardly be relied on to undertake a sober and unbiased assessment of the situation,” the union said.
It added, “while we acknowledge that the Board is the policy-making body, it is our conviction that it does not possess the authority to dictate our terms of employment, which are subject to and protected by the Civil Service.”
The union reiterated that “water is a God-given natural resource that should be utilized and preserved for the people, not a commodity to be profited from by vested interests.”
They said: “We resolve to remain true to our vows as public servants: we are not leaving, we will not give up!”
Lorendo Dilag, BACIWA board chair, earlier said that the utility firm entered into the JVA with PrimeWater because it is necessary, practical, and beneficial because the utility firm does not have the financial capacity on its own to fund an expansion project that will answer Bacolod’s need for more water amid the growing population.*