Water firm files graft rap vs John Hay execs

BAGUIO CITY—A graft complaint has been filed against two senior officials of state-owned John Hay Management Corp. (JHMC) and a health official in the Cordillera Administrative Region at the Office of the Ombudsman.

The John Hay Springs Inc. (JHSI) filed the complaint after it asked a Baguio Regional Trial Court to restrain the JHMC from stopping JHSI’s water refilling operations.

In a 10-page complaint, James G. Molina, president of JHSI, asked the Ombudsman to hold the following official criminally liable for allegedly usurping official functions and alleged grave coercion: Mita Angela M. Dimalanta, vice president and chief operating officer of JHMC; Remegio Basilan, head of the Food and Drugs Cluster of the Bureau of Food and Drugs, Department of Health in the Cordillera, and Joey Bello, head of the One Stop Shop Action Center of JHMC.

The officials were sued after the closure of JHSI’s water refilling station, which was done after JHMC issued a cease-and-desist order to JHSI to operate inside Camp John Hay.

JHSI said in its complaint that JHMC, being a private corporation, does not have the authority to issue a cease-and-desist order on JHSI’s water refilling operations.

JHMC’s mandate, according to the complaint, was to “develop, manage and maintain facilities and properties within and around Camp John Hay for tourism, commercial, industrial, residential, nature reserve and human resources development center.”

JHMC, the complaint said, “does not have the authority to regulate, sanction and penalize another private corporation.”

JHMC shut down JHSI’s water refilling facility on March 26. JHMC and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority  are already the subjects of a series of status quo orders from another Baguio judge that were issued in February.

In a 20-page complaint, JHSI asked the Baguio court to order a status quo and allow the firm to resume operations and for the government to pay damages totaling P808,000.

The JHSI also asked the court to restrain Remegio Basilan, an employee of the local division of BFAD, who inspected the water refilling station on March 26, on the same day that JHSI renewed its permit to operate. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon