BAGUIO CITY – Hundreds of member-consumer-owners of the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) trooped to the electric cooperative’s main headquarters along South Drive to rally behind the incumbent leadership of general manager Engr. Melchor S. Licobern amidst the ongoing machinations being employed by the National Electrification Administration – Board of Administrators (NEA-BOA) to install an appointee.
Joyce Buyagao, one of the MCOs who trooped to the BENECO headquarters, stated that the NEA-BOA refuses to listen to the plight of the MCOs which was exercised by the 7 members of the Board of Directors in appointing Eng. Licoben as the permanent general manager of the electric cooperative and that their insistence to install an unqualified appointee is already questionable.
Further, she claimed that the issuance of the preventive suspension against Licoben and the 7 members of the board who were just asserting their position in the manner is another doubtful action of the NEA-Boa and a form of harassment to pin down those who do not conform to their whims and caprices, thus, the need for MCOs to start coming out in the open to denounce such form of impunity being shown which is already not good for the electric cooperative.
The La Trinidad-based MCO pointed out that the NEA-BOA should value the gains of BENECO over the past several decades under a good management team where Licoben was one of the key personalities involved in uplifting its status into one of the top performing electric cooperatives in the country under the stewardship of the late GM Gerardo P. Verzosa.
For her part, Joy Buyagao, another MCO, stipulated that it will be the MCOs that will protect BENECO from the obviously illegal acts being employed by the NEA-BOA to forcibly take over the leadership that is why the initial wave of MCOs that visited the BENECO main headquarters is just part of the force that will uphold the greater interest of the MCOs in Baguio and Benguet.
According to her, the MCOs had already spoken through their duly elected members of the board of Directors that is why they cannot understand why the NEA-BOA insists in putting in place an unqualified and not recommended appointee to the position of general manager which requires experience, technical expertise, competence and overall knowledge on the country’s complicated power industry which is actually possessed by Engr. Licoben.
The MCOs asserted that they will not allow the BENECO leadership to be toppled by people who are obviously backed by oligarchs wanting to eagerly takeover the management of the electric cooperative because it is their only way of reciprocating the quality service being provided by the officials and employees aside from the enjoyment of the MCOs of the cheap power rates as a product of sound management of the power distribution.
MCOs are keeping their fingers crossed that many MCOs will continue to troop to BENECO’s main headquarters to show their support to the management which is now being seriously undermined by people who do not even possess the qualifications of being supposedly appointed into the sensitive position of general manager. By HENT
