THE PROBLEM in City Hall between Mayor Jerry Treñas and Joe Marie Esteral, a civil registry office bookbinder, is regrettable. Clearly there is an unreported backstory from which the current unfortunate state of affairs has arisen. I assume Esteral’s reassignment to count basura trucks was not meant to be a useful job. If so, we have some empathy with his situation.
Esteral has made a complaint involving several City Hall officials to the Ombudsman. Article XI of the Constitution deals with accountability of public officers. Section 13(1) says that the Office of the Ombudsman has the duty to: “Investigate on its own, or on complaint by a person, any act or omission of any public official, employee, office or agency, when such act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust, improper, or inefficient.”
I hope the Ombudsman’s office can deal promptly with the case and that the outcome will be accepted by all concerned.
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Labor relations problems should ideally be addressed and solved within any organization without the need for public scrutiny.
I recall a case which arose a few years ago between the president and general manager of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco). The president, Arnel Lapore fired the general manager, Sulplicio Lagarde, ostensibly because Lagarde was unable to reduce Ceneco’s system losses. He had a point. Systems losses have fluctuated at around 14 percent for a long time. On the other hand, Lagarde said that systems losses had nothing to do with his termination and that the real reason was that he refused to countersign a document committing Ceneco to yet another bilateral agreement to receive electricity. Lagarde, too, had a point. Ceneco contracted to buy electricity that its long-suffering consumers neither wanted nor asked for. This non-existent electricity has cost Ceneco’s consumers P232 million which is still being paid for.
Anyhow, Lagarde filed a complaint against Ceneco’s Board of Directors with the National Labor Relations Council (NLRC). Eventually, the NLRC upheld Lagarde’s complaint and the Board had to refund Lagarde to the tune of P2.2 million. Since there was seven Board members this amounted to around P320,000 each, a substantial amount as their emoluments as Board members were reportedly only P2,500 per meeting attended.
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Our extended family has resided in both Iloilo and Bacolod for more than the past 25 years (the length of a typical franchise agreement).
Perhaps we are lucky but we have not experienced the horror stories that some have had in Iloilo. We have, however, noticed that Ceneco has more and also more lengthy brownouts than PECO.
As far as I am concerned, if Enrique Razon Jr. has problems in becoming established in Iloilo, he is welcome to look at the electricity supply situation in Central Negros.
But how can a cooperative be dislodged?/PN
