BENECO District Elections 2023

If there would really be no BENECO district elections this year, it is NOT the first time it will happen.

There were NO district elections in 2020, 2021 and 2022—in short, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic when the whole country was in various stages of quarantine lockdown, for obvious reasons.

The entire regular Board of Directors, including the Magnificent Seven, had already served out their terms as early as April 2020. They remained in office on a holdover capacity, by virtue of NEA extending their terms twice.

This goes to show that even the lawyers of NEA had no situational awareness of their own position.

In administrative law, the term of an appointee—which ALL directors became as soon as their regular elected terms expired—ends automatically at the completion of the extension cycle (say, a year), unless sooner revoked. And since an appointment extension is not a matter of right, that revocation can come at any time with or without cause.

In fact, this revocation not need even be explicit. It can be inferred from any action of the appointing power tending to repudiate the actions of an appointee, or when there is an apparent irreconcilable policy difference between them.

There was no need—and, therefore, there was no effective service of it—to impose the penalty of suspension or termination against the board whose extended terms, after 2020, ended whenever NEA said so.

But for NEA it was a matter of regulatory and institutional pride. Former NEA Administrator Emmanuel Juaneza needed to show that he could “remove” the board at will, with all the fanfare and glitz that comes with a naked display of power. For reasons of his personal pride, he needed to rub the Magnificent Seven’s faces in the hard concrete.

Why? Because their handpicked appointee for GM, as competent as she is for other positions, did not fit the qualifications for GM. So putting down the resistance of the Magnificent Seven against the rogue appointment was NEA’s way of squaring the circle. They had to come forward with “shock and awe” to distract the public attention from their own peccadillo.

One of the most important things I told the EC-MCO United, the core group of which was composed of my Alpha Class students, was to be aware of the impending challenge against the tenure of the Magnificent Seven that could come anytime.

By my estimation, NEA could come to its senses as early as April 2022, which would have been the expiration of the second extension.

So I suggested that the first undertaking of the EC-MCO United should be a formal conferment of a mandate on the Magnificent Seven, outside of the framework of a BENECO district election..

It is not official, of course—it will never be—but if you have a resolution declaring confidence on the Magnificent Seven signed by a good percentage, if not all, of the 138,000 BENECO member consumers, that would be something even Malacañan cannot ignore.

NEA, for one, would realize that if THAT many people wanted it, there’s no stopping the people from going to a regular court and forcing the issue by mandamus. The By-laws do state that as few as 100 members can call for an emergency assembly—and during the height of public involvement in the controversy, I thought the MCO ‘s could muster the support of at least 14,000 members easy. That’s how many showed up at the first (and only) ARGAM.

The officers wondered how this could be done, gathering that many signatures AFTER the ARGAM had already adjourned. I said it doesn’t have to be an onsite thing. You can circulate the Petition, the basic wording of which I dictated to the husband and wife tandem of Beng and Virgil Garcia (they acted as the informal secretariat for the aforming EC-MCO) during a meeting we had at Inn Rocio.

Of course, I hastened to add, the critical factor here is that all that would sign the Petition have to be members of the EC-MCO, because that entity is what would bring the matter go court, if necessary. That’s precisely why you are forming EC-MCO—to acquire legal personality.

So the Petition would be approved by the members BY REFERENDUM—which would be your justification for not doing it onsite.

It will be challenged, of course—just as every signature in a direct Peoples Initiative or Recall petition will be challenged. But the fact that NEA will be charged with the burden of disproving every signature—I estimated that the gargantuan task would be enough to drive NEA lawyers suicidal.

As a bonus, I said, that will also fast-track your membership recruitment drive. To become a true force to reckon with, EC-MCO must have tens of thousands of card-bearing members standing behind it. If I were a NEA lawyer and I know that EC-MCO is composed of nothing more than a handful of noisy “dyosas” and “jologs” I would just laugh at it.

The power of an organization comes from the depth of its membership, not the street savvy of its leaders. The leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in America are morons. But with its 5 million members, all US presidents have no choice but to dance the tango with them.

Somebody suggested including a provision in the By-laws that said all registered BENECO members shall automatically become members of EC-MCO as well.

I said you can’t do that—that would be involuntary servitude, a constitutional violation of the right to FREELY associate. Involuntary servitude has nothing to do with slavery—which is the common conception. It is the sufferance of doing a SERVIANT act, one of forced compliance without one’s knowledge or against one’s consent.

That person insisted “pwede raw yun.” She thought she was better than a lawyer, which just goes to show that, indeed, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

In the beginning, at least, I heard that copies of the Petition did circulate among the districts—and with a nominal membership fee of just P100 pesos, there were plenty who came forward and enlisted. How many exactly, I don’t know.

But over the course of the next few weeks, the Petition fizzled. No one among the EC-MCO officers was focusing on it, because their president was busier socializing than doing organizational homework.

I frowned at the idea of the EC-MCO officers strutting around like idiots in costume parties at out-of-town conventions of Philreca. To me, it was the equivalent of playing the fiddle as Rome burned. They also acquired this notion, I don’t know how, that their main function is to issue group statements and press releases, that few in mainstream media picked up anyway. After all, the media KNEW that this was just a ragtag group of talking heads representing virtually no one besides themselves.

As for the membership drive, you can tell right now that they do not have a capability to mobilize a significant number of warm bodies to illustrate proof of strength. They can gush forth with denunciations against NEA that amount to, as Macbeth said, “all sound and fury signifying nothing.”

But for me, what takes the cake, as far as betraying the reason for its existence—its raison d’etre—goes was how the leadership of the EC-MCO welcomed the Second Invasion of NEA with open arms. This was the VERY Second Invasion they had spent the better part of two years preparing to resist.

Instead, their cantankerous president proudly announced that she had been appointed corporate secretary—later backtracking and claiming she was “elected” board secretary by the 5-man Interim Board, of which she was not a member. Both offices—an appointed corporate secretary, or an elected NON-DIRECTOR secretary—do not exist in the law.

Of course there can be a board “secretary”–the clerical kind—someone who would take notes during a meeting and make coffee for everyone. That person does NOT possess corporate powers such as issuing Secretary’s Certificates or signing public announcements. For years, the Board had Sly Quintos as its secretary, but you never saw the guy throwing his weight around, least of all collecting a generous salary.

The only way for this present situation to obtain is for the whole arrangement to come with the blessing of Almeda. That leaves no doubt where that corporate secretary owes allegiance. And there is nothing wromg with that so long as you do not continue to style yourself at the same time still as an advocate of MCO interest, which is diametrically opposed to the policies, actions and agenda of NEA.

But more than the annoyance that this scenario brought, its more profound damage was how it deflated public support for the cause of defending BENECO. Any way you look at it, the EC-MCO sold out and everything after that is pure justification, rationalization and coverup. It is what it is.

The EC-MCO tried to recover, by holding an election (I presume) earlier this year, replacing Mia Magdalena with Dane Ducayag as president.

Immediately, Ducayag launched a series of “apologetics” articles, explaining how the MCO’s had come to a decision to give new NEA Administrator Almeda the benefit of all their doubts. The MCO’s, ostensibly, were reserving their “true strength” for flexing at the “right timing” even drawing an ill-conceived parallel between the EC-MCO’s position to that of a pilot waiting for the “all clear signal” before landing his aircraft.

Someone could have told him that landing an aircraft was not optional for the pilot. He can’t stay aloft forever and he can’t change his airport of destination once his fuel dips critically low.

What the EC-MCO did not consider was that giving the NEA that all-important “one foot in” is all it needed to completely take over BENECO South Drive, a feat they could not even accomplish with guns for two years.

Moreover, they concentrated on protecting—or appearing to protect—GM Mel Licoben but totally dropped the Magnificent Seven when it was THE Magnificent Seven that installed MSL in the first place, and continuously protected him all throughout the crisis.

They can bestow their “thoughts and prayers” on the Magnificent Seven all they want, that would still amount to less than nothing. The EC-MCO had not even issued one statement since January–NOT EVEN ONE–protesting the removal of THEIR elected BENECO board. And even today, they have not categorically stated WHERE they stand on this issue. How strange is that?

Worse, they are boasting of and celebrating the WRONG victory, proudly saying that because of their collaboration with NEA, BENECO was able to regain access to all its bank accounts.

Let’s analyze what a milestone achievement that really is.

The new signatories to all BENECO accounts are now Project Supervisor Almeda, Interim Board Chairman Steve Cating and Acting GM Ramil Rafani. Even the last holdputs among Baguio’s banks, China Bank and East West, that used to still recognize the signatures of Chairman Esteban Somngi and GM Mel licoben NO LONGER do so.

Now, no BENECO money goes out without the OK of the three new signatories.

The only reason the BENECO employees are even able to get the payrolll out is by the signature of these three people. No wonder you can barely hear that line of defiance “Empleyado ak Laeng” anymore. Nobody but nobody in the BENECO staff, from GM down to the rank-and-file will now dare to displease their new gods, as witness the fact that no matter how the NEA walks all over MSL now, none of his loyal staff can even raise a whimper.

I can’t believe my Alpha Students could be proud of THAT.

Colloboration is not a cheap compromise. Collaboration cost the maverick BENECO of 2021, 2022 EVERYTHING it was valiantly fighting for.* (TO BE CONTINUED)