Gocc counsel reviews COWD-Rio Verde compromise deal

By LITO RULONA
Correspondent

THE Cagayan de Oro Water District has submitted to the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel a proposed compromise agreement between it and its bulk water supplier Rio Verde Water Consortium Inc. to end their controversial 12-year contract.

Engr. Rachel Beja, COWD general manager, told the city council’s committee on public utilities on Friday that Rio Verde has formally asked the water district that it would be terminating the 2005 contract that made the Jose Alvarez-owned firm as a major COWD source of treated water.

Rio Verde built a P1-billion water treatment facility in Barangay Pualas, Baungon, Bukidnon, and started delivering at least 40,000 cubic meters a day to COWD on Jan. 1, 2007.

Beja said COWD received Rio Verde’s counter compomise agreement on Aug. 8, 2017, and this was forwarded to Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, the principal and statutory law office of government-owned-and-controlled corporations.

After legal review, the compromise agreement would be submitted to the court where COWD and Rio Verde have long been fighting a legal battle, she said.

“Both parties initially agreed to end this dispute,” Beja said.

She said the draft agreement to nullify the bulk water supply agreement was discussed by COWD and Rio Verde.

Beja said there were two letters by the two parties, dated Jan. 4, 2017 and April 5, 2017, that discussed the terms of the proposed compromise.

The proposed agreement would make COWD and Rio Verde drop all disputes against each other and terminate the legal proceedings involving them as well as mutually pre-terminate their Dec. 23, 2004 and Jan. 21, 2005 supplemental agreement.

If and when it is signed, all their legal disputes  would be “canceled, revoked, and legally terminated.”

COWD and Rio Verde also agreed to sign a joint motion to dismiss the pending cases to be submitted to the 38th branch of the Regional Trial Court, and the Supreme Court.

In the draft document, the two parties agreed that “the first option to purchase treated bulk water from an existing facility could be the quickest fix to the present crisis given the long-term nature of the outright purchase of an existing plant and construction of a new one.”