S1L7 – The Most Potent Basis of Consumer power: OWNERSHIP
When American Idol Season 1 Champion Kelly Clarkson sang, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” she could very well have been singing about what’s happening in BENECO today.
Before NEA launched its campaign to terrorize local consumers with a “SEAL Team Six” type of raid on the cooperative’s headquarters on October 18, 2021, most residents in Baguio and Benguet were pretty indifferent about the affairs of BENECO.
In fact, I’d even go as far as saying the average consumer was nominally antagonistic towards it, the same way you felt about PLDT, Globe, Smart, Skycable and all these other utility companies that took your hard-earned money every month and rarely picked up the phone when you’re trying to call them to complain.
I’m willing to bet anything that if the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) were to try to implant a general manager of their liking in PILTEL or PLDT, most people in Baguio would have just shrugged their shoulders. I, for one, couldn’t care less. Ditto for PLDT, Globe, Smart, SkyCable, Cignal, etc. These are well-moneyed companies—aaah, let them the heck protect themselves.
As a teacher of Political Science, I used to tell my students at the University of the Cordilleras (UC) that no one can manipulate social dynamics. To some extent some descendant of Goebbels (Adolf Hitler’s propaganda architect) can influence public opinion. In a culture like ours where most people get their opinion from bumper stickers, that’s not a very difficult thing to do. But p-r wizardry has its limits and no matter how big the apparatus or how loud the amplification, it simply won’t move people into action if the net effect of the thing under contention on their lives is zero. Social dynamics is moved by social dynamics itself—the will of society and not the act of man.
The perfect example of this is ABS-CBN. When it comes to whipping up manufactured sentinent, you can’t beat this leviathan Lopez apparatus. Name the cause and they can launch it into moon orbit with bells on. Its stable of showbiz superstars—these fairer creatures of God who can send throngs of fans into convulsions of hysterics with a simple flying kiss—can command the national emotion. Sometimes, they remind me of the Energizer bunny—just flick the switch to “ON” and this panoply of soap opera stars can cry you a river everyday nonstop 24/7.
But in the most existential crisis it ever faced—the loss of its free air franchise—no matter how hard this media juggernaut tried, it just couldn’t ignite a national outrage menacing enough to stop dead its Congressional franchise committee tormentors. As good as ABS-CBN was at playing “billionaire-victim,” it couldn’t get the popular body politik to do more for it than honk their car horns.
In stark contrast, I take a look at this BENECO community of MCO’s—that’s “member-consumer-owners”—and I see no superstars in their ranks. Sure, you can name a few prominent individuals—like darling of the crowd Mia Magdalena, to name just one. But the doggone girl is a NURSE and was already a prominent social influencer even BEFORE this whole fiasco broke out. When they tried to exclude her from the spectators’ gallery during this week’s session of the Benguet Provincial Board, just because the mere sight of her was apparently enough to shortcircuit the brain of NEA’s golden girl, they (NEA) made her ten times even bigger. The practical reality, however, is she is not the one giving marching orders to anybody. I honestly don’t know who is.
This is totally frustrating and disorienting for NEA because when you’re fighting a leaderless force, you just don’t know where to aim your fire. And yet every footsoldier from the other side is sniping at you from all directions. What’s worse, it seems the footsoldiers don’t even need battle instructions. The mission seems self-programmed by each individual unto himself. It’s like going up against a colony of Army ants with every ant doing what he needs to do when no one’s telling him how to do what.
So what, indeed, makes these MCO’s do for liliputian BENECO what its rabid fan base were unwilling to do for giant ABS-CBN?
In one word, the answer is OWNERSHIP.
Ultimately, people don’t care what happens to ABS-CBN because “kapamilya” is just an ad agency’s slogan. The rich Lopezes could live without its audience and vice versa. So why would people spill out onto the streets to protect what is ultimately NOT THEIRS?
Thanks to NEA—and I mean that sincerely—BENECO consumers are finally actualizing their ownership of this electric cooperative. Enough of the abstractions, they now want to know: what exactly do they have to do, besides pay their monthly bills on time, to make their ownership of their stake in BENECO a REAL CONTRACT?
Many are now paying their membership equity shares, and minding all those registration details they have taken for granted all these past years. In short, these MCO’s are no longer contented with honorary stakes, they are consolidating their vested interests into LEGAL TITLE—brick by brick cementing the membership infrastructure of BENECO.
From the standpoint of timeline, NEA had missed its golden opportunity. Had its “shock and awe” initial assault only succeeded, they’d be dealing with a thoroughly demoralized MCO base today. Unfortunately, even a half-organized MCO community (including some I earlier offensively described as “women with balls the size of cantaloupes”) was even too daunting for NEA. It couldn’t even break the will of that tiny intrepid force that retook South Drive so quick before NEA could even break open the champagne bottle.
For NEA, that’s as easy as it will ever get. The next time it tries another ill-advised hijacking effort like that again, it will find itself having to contend with a thousand lawyers already.
So the clarion call today for BENECO consumers is to work out your membership details. Just promptly paying your monthly bill is not enough. There’s a couple or so steps more to do, but altogether a simple errand that won’t take you an hour. That way, no one can ever tell you “tumalna ka man dita, consumer ka laeng.”
Just like in this coming election on May 2022, you can shout yourself hoarse campaigning but if you’re not a registered voter, you would absolutely make no difference in the final election results, let alone in the whole political equation. You’ll end up just being a noisy “salingpusa.”
By the way, membership is never by proxy. So you have to do it yourself.
Don’t send Brosia.
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”