THE National Electrification Administration (NEA), through its Task Force Duterte Northern Davao Power (NDP) took over the management of the Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco) last Thursday, designating new managers from other electric cooperatives in Mindanao.
NEA Task Force Duterte NDP Chairman Eric Bucoy announced the management takeover as ordered by the NEA during the general assembly of Daneco employees held at the College Seminary Chapel in Tagum City last Thursday afternoon.
“The management takeover is temporary. Our challenge is to bring back Daneco to its limelight. As to our timeline, maybe six months is too long. Within the period, we will aim to have a 100-percent collection efficiency, to become Triple A category electric cooperative,” said Bucoy, whom Malacañang, through the NEA, appointed as the man to troubleshoot the long ailing and financially troubled Daneco.
NEA designated Agusan del Sur Electric Cooperative (Aselco) General Manager Emmanuel Galarce as Daneco COO and Agusan del Sur II Electric Cooperative (Surseco II) General Manager Iglorio Hinayon as Daneco CEO.
Other new management officers were also designated, like Mario Angelo Sotto as the deputy COO for the administration-finance department, while the last acting General Manager Benedicto Ongking was assigned back to his old post as the technical department manager in Daneco’s Compostela Valley office.
Bucoy said the positions of CEO and COO are the NEA’s latest management innovations.
“The CEO gets its mandate from the board of directors. The COO is the acting general manager who is responsible to the daily operations of the electric cooperative and he is under the CEO,” he said.
Witnessing the formal announcement of NEA’s management takeover were other members of the Task
Force Duterte NDP, who are general managers and board presidents of other electric co-ops in Mindanao, Philippine Electricity Market Board Member and Leyte Electric Cooperative General Manager Allan Laniba and the 13-man Daneco board of directors.
Bucoy also ordered for the halt of the old practice of employees’ paying their electric bills through salary deduction, but rather on or before the due date of their electric bills. He said this is their contribution to target increasing collection efficiency and decreasing system loss.
He assured employees that under the new structure, nobody would be displaced from employment, but those “doing wrong and having conflict of interest would be terminated”.
In an interview, Bucoy refused comment on what would be done to the still rivaling “Daneco CDA” group that is still allegedly doing clandestine collections but is not paying power obligations.
Bucoy was President Duterte’s campaign manager in the Visayas during the 2016 elections. He is a known electric consumerist leader in Cebu.
However, a Daneco insider said an agreement had already been struck for the Daneco CDA group to be “pardoned” rather than sued with syndicated estafa based on Bucoy’s “amnesia” principle of moving on as long as the group would dissolve itself.
But Bucoy sounded off during his talk before the employees that he could have earlier opted for cease-and-desist order to stop the group when the Task Force Duterte NDP was constituted by NEA Administrator Edgardo Masongsong in February pursuant to NEA’s step-in powers over ailing electric co-ops. “But CDO is our last alternative.”
He also asked employees to stop the use of “Daneco NEA” and Daneco CDA as reference, adding it is only one Daneco that has authority with the NEA and a franchise to distribute power.
Daneco is already past its legal-battle phase with the Daneco CDA group with Daneco winning in all of the cases up to the Supreme Court. The “Daneco CDA” group has still its unrevoked CDA registration.
But it is experiencing a losing financial streak as it has trouble meeting its power obligations by its collections, resulting to several debt-restructuring episodes.
There is also talk that Daneco inevitably would be divided into three electric co-ops, one for Comval, another for Davao del Norte, and the third for Samal Island after the expiration of Daneco’s congressional franchise in 2028.
To prepare for this eventuality, Galarce told the employees that under his management, the Samal area, the Davao del Norte area and the Comval area would have a “friendly competition”, but when one falters, the other areas would come to help for augmentation.
He also said legal actions and apprehensions would be launched to stop power pilferages that contribute to the problem on collection and system loss.
Image credits: Cha Monforte