BAGUIO CITY – Former and incumbent officials and employees of the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO), city, provincial and municipal officials within BENECO’s franchise area, representatives of various government agencies, friends and acquaintances of the late General Manager Gerardo P. Verzosa trooped to the Pedro Dumol hall Thursday morning to pay their last respect to the undoubted best electric cooperative manager in the country that ever lived.
Verzosa, 64, served BENECO for over 3 decades as a Project Supervisor and a full pledged General Manager, joined his Creator on September 16, 2020.
Hundreds of well-wishers expressed their deepest sympathy and sincerest condolences to Verzosa’s bereaved family, his wife Gail Mangaoang-Verzosa, his son Candido and his daughter Bianca and his sister and brothers-in-law headed by Kalinga Rep. Allen Jesse C. Mangaoang during the requiem mass that was held for the late BENECO official.
In behalf of BENECO, including member-consumer-owners, Engr. Melchor S. Licoben, incumbent General Manager, stated that people come in grief and deepest sorrow on the untimely demise of GM Gerry as they lost a great leader and a mentor who had shepherd and guided them to be strong, resilient, dedicated, efficient and competitive.
He had known GM Gerry to be a visionary and a strategic thinker, who was brilliant, innovative, creative and pragmatic and that BENECO is now where it is, one of the country’s top performing electric cooperatives, because of the talent and skills of the departed official.
“Our GM is a management expert, human resource manager, electric engineer, builder, lawyer, accountant and financial guro rolled into one. He was also a team player bringing his basketball skills from his glory days in Ateneo in the early 1970s to BENECO and making the players blend as a formidable team to reckon with in the country’s power industry,” Licoben stressed.
The BENECO official claimed that many of the people know him as a strong and energetic and charismatic leader, dedicated, passionate, strict disciplinarian and probably feared because of his no non-sense attitude when it comes to instilling discipline among the ranks. But behind the strict and strong leader is a soft and kind-hearted, compassionate and helpful person who wants to help solve the problem of others but does not want others to know his problem.
More importantly, Licoben noted that GM Gerry is always ahead of his time as he was always 2 steps ahead among his fellow GMs in the implementation of the government’s rural electrification program aside from pioneering numerous activities that became the benchmark of probably all the 121 electric cooperatives in the country.
Verzosa was the brainchild of the government’s Sitio Electrification Program (SEP) as he was the only GM that took the bold move of obtaining a P100 million loan from the National Electrification Administration (NEA) to pursue the electrification program in the non-viable areas in Benguet which is part of BENECO’s franchise area.
According to him, the first thing that GM Gerry did when he took over as Project Supervisor and later on GM was to improve the salaries and benefits of the employees where the same was done while BENECO was on the verge of bankruptcy and failing to pay its obligations to its power suppliers and creditors.
While he was able to turn the tables to improve the status of BENECO, Verzosa did not lose sight on the clamor of consumers for a reliable power distribution system and cheap power and to date BENECO charges the cheapest power rate among the different public and private distribution companies in the country.
For his part, Rep. Mangaoang disclosed that the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) had allegedly aggravated the frustrations of his brother-in-law because of the restrictions that had been imposed that caused him to stay home for quite some time.
He claimed that GM Gerry was well loved not only by the members of his family because of the beautiful life that he was able to provide them but also his friends and acquaintances for being a trusted and reliable friend and a kind-hearted person.
Mangaoang expressed the family’s heartfelt gratitude to all those who condoled with them during the difficult times because of the painful loss of their beloved brother-in-law, saying that he should be remembered by the many lives that he was able to touch and not by his tragic death.
The Kalinga lawmaker emphasized that GM Gerry was able to immediately embrace the culture of the Cordillerans as soon as he became a member of their family when he married his younger sister some time in 1992 and that he was able to uphold the same throughout his life.
For her part, Gail Mangaoang-Verzosa stated that their family was blessed for having GM Gerry as an integral part of their lives as he was an amazing father to their children and a loving, caring and understanding husband.
She admitted that the COVID pandemic actually aggravated his condition after having suffered from a mild stroke early this year based on his farewell letter addressed to her and their two children.
GM Gerry’s wife narrated that based on his revelation on his letter to them, he feared of having to suffer a second wave that might further aggravate his situation, physically, emotionally and mentally that will leave them having to take care of him in the coming years.
Mrs. Verzosa also expressed her family’s gratitude to all those who condoled with them at the prevailing difficult times in their family as words cannot describe the pain that they are currently experiencing following the untimely loss of their beloved one.
The BENECO board through President Atty. Esteban Somngi and Vice President Luke Gumiyac turned over to the family separate resolutions of sympathy and condolences and expressing gratitude to GM Gerry for having rendered invaluable service that caused him to be the poster boy of the government’s rural electrification program and setting the model for exemplary public service.
Private Sector representative Ryan Dale Mangusan also turned over to the bereaved family a resolution from the Regional Development Council (RDC) in the Cordillera that expressed the policy-among body’s sympathy and condolences to the Mangaoang and Verzosa families for the untimely demise of GM Gerry.
Former Benguet Rep. Ronald M. Cosalan stated that GM Gerry had extreme passion for his work in BENECO and that he initiated the implementation of the government’s rural electrification program in Benguet that allowed the full energization of the province’s 140 barangays.
Cosalan said that he worked for the establishment of minihydro power plants in the different parts of the province as a clean source of energy and that one is the ongoing put up of the 3-megawatt Man-asok minihydro plant in Sebang, Buguias, Benguet.
The former lawmaker revealed that he labored to make BENECO one of the best electric cooperative in the country and that GM Gerry is a good friend and a Cordilleran by heart.
By Hent