PANGLAO.-If not for the proverbial cooler heads, the unthinkable would have reared its ugly head in the “roller coaster relations” between Mayor Benedicto Alcala and his majority in the Sangguniang Bayan. Verbal sparks were already flying in the radio airlanes when text messages flooded DYTR text lines “as if threatening that an accident was waiting to explode”. Mayor Alcala was reportedly pissed off by the actuations of some SB members who questioned the propriety of a water supply agreement he entered with a Cebu-based water company. Apparently thinking that an emergency situation needs emergency solutions, Alcala issued a business permit to Mactan Rock Industries, Inc. to put up a desalination plant in Panglao. Vocal with her pointed questions about the water deal, Kagawad Mercia Denoso went on air and denounced Alcala of bypassing the SB in securing the water supply contract.

There was no memorandum of agreement to speak up when Mactan Rock dug an aquifer in Panglao to pave the way for its desalination plant. This triggered an SB inquiry. In a special session last Friday, the complaining SB members grilled Mactan Rock representatives why their go signal was not sought when they put up the facility. It appeared that in his haste to solve a creeping problem, Alcala forgot that he has a law-making body to contend with. That would have been a battle line drawn to an otherwise cohesive group that won the elections over the camp of reelectionist mayor Doloriech Dumaluan.

The Dumaluan administration was virtually a minefield of dirty politics when for three years, he was in direct confrontation with a hostile and uncooperative SB. With Dumaluan and the SB in a vicious cycle of charges and countercharges, the town's development plans were in limbo as both parties refused to budge an inch in the name of a happy compromise. The checkered episode of the unlamented Dumaluan reign in Panglao ended when Mayor Alcala wrested control of the top elective post. It was smooth sailing from the start for the two august bodies—executive and legislative, only to discover that they were not meant for each other when the water issue in Panglao erupted in near crisis proportions.

But just like a “lover's quarrel”, it started well and ended well. When representatives of Mactan Rock appeared before the restive SB, Engr. Antonio Tompar, the firm's chief executive officer, took pains to explain why his office failed to satisfy the councilors' curiosity about the water project. Saying he did not think it was deliberate on their part, the water bigwig assured SB members to secure all the necessary documents to legitimize the company's water distribution business in Panglao.

The assurance was enough balm to soothe wounded feelings of SB members. The water honcho also assured his audience of SB members that if a new water provider comes along, he will lose no time in pulling out his water plant in Panglao. This means that its Panglao entry is only temporary even if the company already spent something like P17 million to construct the plant. At a daily capacity of 300 cu. meters, Panglao resort owners in Tawala, Libaong and Danao can have their daily water supply at P38/cu. meter. The price appeared economical to resort owners because at present, they are paying as much as P100.00 in trucking water from the mainland to the island. What provoked the near Mayor Alcala-tussle was the request of Mactan Rock to use the pipeline of the local waterworks system in bringing water to the central part of the town.

Mactan Rock people thought the idea of using the local pipeline in response to an emergency situation. The faltering Panglao waterworks System broke down for the nth time, prompting Mayor Alcala to use his “emergency powers”. According to the SB majority, the idea to tap the Panglao pipeline was nowhere in the agreement when the water firm conceded to build the water facility in Panglao. The desalination plant processes brackish water from an aquifer the water firm dug and convert it into potable water. Brackish water is a combination of seawater and fresh water.