Bulacan mayor, wife deny hand in water tank blast

CITY OF MALOLOS — Saying charges filed against them were “nonsensical, bordering on absurdity,” City of San Jose del Monte Mayor Arthur Robes and his wife, Bulacan Rep. Florida Robes, denied any involvement in a water tank explosion that killed four people and hurt more than 30 others in 2017.

As a result of the incident, a city councilor, Irene del Rosario, filed murder and frustrated murder charges in the Office of the Ombudsman against the Robes couple and eight others on Monday.

Del Rosario claimed the Robes couple and the officials and members of San Jose del Monte Water District had ordered unnamed suspects to sabotage the 13-meter high water tank by deliberately switching off its pressure valves that sent a wall of water toward a neighborhood at 3 a.m. on Oct. 6 last year.

The explosion killed four people and injured more than 30 others who were sleeping when the tank unleashed about 2,000 cubic meters of water that tore through 10 houses at Barangay Muzon in San Jose del Monte.

In her 20-page complaint, Del Rosario said the explosion was an act of terrorism to justify the water district’s joint venture arrangement with a private water company.

Plot
She said she filed the complaint, with the help of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, to head off a supposed plot to link her to the explosion.

She cited sworn statements of two men who, she said, were supposedly hired by the mayor’s aide to implicate her.

In a statement, the Robes couple said the San Jose del Monte government had no jurisdiction over the decision of SJDM Water District to enter into a joint venture agreement with the private water firm.

Mayor Robes said they would not “sacrifice the lives of innocent people for political and personal interests.” —REPORTS FROM CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE AND VINCE NONATO