REVERSED PUNCH: The DANECO Enigma: Imperial Manila at work

Chairman of the board Engr. Albert M. Omega calls it the DANECO enigma.

The story began in 2012 when the Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative registered with the Cooperative Development Authority.

This was two months after the general assembly voted overwhelmingly for CDA registration, with 49,056 member-consumers giving it the thumbs up. In contrast, only 1,773 voted to remain under the control of the National Electrification Administration and 330 voting for registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The mandate could have long clinched the issue for DANECO.

Unfortunately for power distribution facilities like DANECO that chose to register rightfully with the CDA, the move did not sit well with the NEA and that is putting it mildly.

What followed was something beyond comprehension. First, according to Engr. Omega, the NEA refused to recognize or to honor the CDA registration.

Then it filed a case with the Ombudsman against then CDA chair Emmanuel Santiaguel for registering DANECO. This was eventually dismissed after the graft body found no proof of irregularity.

Next, it issued a cease and desist order that culminated into a court case that led all the way to the Supreme Court. Eventually, DANECO’s board of directors chose to resign, paving the way for a general assembly in October 2012 that elected the current set of board of directors.

Pushing the knife further, it set up a parallel distributing facility, named DANECO, Inc. or DANECO NEA.

What is to be done? According to Omega, referral moves were suggested “to bring about a win-win” solution. One was a “confirmatory referendum” to ascertain the validity of the 2012 referendum that showed 40,056 voting for CDA registration.  DANECO rejected it considering that it has no legal basis.

The second suggestion was to cancel DANECO’ s CDA registration, based on the Supreme Court decision for NEA to hold supervisory and control over DANECO.  But DANECO officials said this was an empty bag since DANECO was never a respondent to the case.

The last recourse was to cut or to divide the franchise area of DANECO into two, “with the franchised area of DANECO that straddled the provinces of Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley having one DANECO each.”

DANECO asks: how can NEA register an electric cooperative when it has no mandate to do so?

At the Kapehan sa Davaw earlier this month, lawyer Baltazar Sator said DANECO has no other recourse except to bring the matter finally to the office of President Duterte to help bring about a closure.

As a matter of principle, it is not difficult to see who is right and who is wrong. The mandate given by 40,056 member-consumers is no laughing matter. As lawyers are wont to say,vox populi vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God.

The right to self-organization is enshrined in the Constitution and the CDA was itself created by Congress “to promote the viability and growth of cooperatives as instruments (in attaining) social justice and economic development.”

Every which you go in the archipelago, and most notably in this region, cooperatives have helped tremendously in transforming the economic landscape, perhaps more effectively than the so-called ‘poverty alleviation’ programs of several government line agencies.

One cooperative stand-out comes from Tagum City itself, the multi-awarded Tagum multipurpose cooperative whose total assets now run to P4Billion with a membership of 120,000 individuals. I think it belongs to the top five cooperatives in the Philippines.

But unfortunately for the member-consumers of DANECO, we are still in the dark ages in so far as asserting and respecting the mandate of the CDA is concerned, and by extension, the will of the member-consumers themselves.

Part of the answer I think lies with NEA. My guess is that it is determined at all cost to maintain its hold on power distribution facilities of Mindanao, never mind if they are in reality, pseudo-cooperatives that do not provide patronage refunds and dividends.

In Luzon, the number of pseudo-electric cooperatives ran by highly-paid NEA-backed executives are dime a dozen. How some of them manage to subvert change is a study on “the sad state of governance” in this country.

Nevertheless, NEA has seen its hold eroded in Luzon with at least six electric cooperatives opting for CDA registration.  It has seen its hold further eroded in the Visayas with two facilities registering with CDA.  It cannot afford one facility in Mindanao to break its control, else others would gradually see the light and seek deliverance.  I think that is the bottom-line.

No wonder, social justice is hard to achieve in the archipelago.

 

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