Why it’s crucial for BENECO to elect fresh officers or renew office terms
Pre-Semester Non-Lecture Analysis 43
Back in those days of my pathetic attempts to go to the gym, one of the guys wore a shirt that said “Your workout is my warmup!”
I hated the sight of that shirt but it’s the only way I could think of NEA’s ability to muster public support and command warm bodies, compared to BENECO’s.
NEA’s workout is only BENECO’s warmup.
Under cover of darkness, NEA led a private army of state police in conquering BENECO at dawn on Monday. Forty-eight hours later by Wednesday, a motley street salad of employees, member-consumer-owners (yes, people DO still ask me what MCO means), youths, senior citizens, people belonging to NGO’s and civic clubs, media and other kibitzers, marched through Session Road and South Drive. In less time than it takes to cook breakfast, they had retaken BENECO.
Their number was impressive, I have to say. The organizers—and I use the term loosely because I didn’t really see too many such—put this ragtag people’s street parliament together in a matter of two days on a budget very close to zero.
Mayor Benjie Magalong said in his remarks “there’s no politics here.” He’s right because if there was his advisers would be the dumbest people to let him stand in the middle of it.
Oh, but there is. Energy Secretary and PDP-Laban “Sara wing” chairman Alfonso Cusi, overlord of NEA, has reportedly asked party elements to “re-poll” Baguio and Benguet. They want to know if they took a hit because of the mishandling of the BENECO-NEA fiasco. Save your money, I can tell you right now, YES, you did. Bigly.
All politics is local. To go by how local candidates are behaving, it is quite clear that to be perceived as “pro-BENECO” is the safest bet. But as true as it is that victory has many fathers while defeat is an orphan, politicians should be careful not to make make the same miscalculation as NEA did. Baguio voters (can we just agree that every time you say Baguio you really mean Baguio, Benguet and pretty much all of the Cordilleras?) are much more discerning than pollsters can figure out. To borrow the words of Scripture, not all who say “Lord! Lord!” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, and on the day of reckoning there will be plenty of crying and gnashing of teeth.
Local politics “trickle upwards” to national politics. Evidently, even Duterte has decided to drop NEA’s golden girl and silver-plated errand boy. For the time being. Reason, perhaps, why even presidential low-wattage megaphone Harry Roque has stopped defending NEA’s appointment.
So, at least for now, BENECO can heave a sigh of relief. Funny how that word “sigh” sticks out though, isn’t it—is the danger really over?
No. Half of the “Magnificent 7” are holdover directors whose terms were extended by NEA because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like I said in an earlier post “It’s a race against time and too few are even aware that the clock is ticking.” I wonder how many people did get it?
Unless BENECO scrambles to hold elections soon, while MCO morale and unity is at its strongest, NEA will try to beat them by padding the Board of Directors with “independent directors” it can LEGALLY APPOINT under Republic Act 10531. This is to ostensibly fill vacancies that it can create by itself, by revoking the term extensions it granted. The next time NEA submits a list of pre-vetted nominees to the EC-BOD, they will have applied the lesson they learned on Wednesday. The list will now include a couple of wildcards, in addition to golden girl AND they will have the votes they need.
“But if one is still not qualified, having the votes is irrelevant, they still cannot do the wrong thing!”
That’s what I kept saying about Meilou Sereno.
There’s no time to teach anybody how to read between the lines.
Hold that election.
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”