Slowly and Steadily

The appointment of Engr. Art Bacoco as next Acting General Manager of BENECO, vice Engr. Ramil Rafani, serves notice to all that NEA is extending its reign over the cooperative to at least a year.

The basis, evidently, is the lack of challenge against the lack of legal basis to overextend a 90-day task under P.D. 269. This was abundantly clear during the opening session of the 42nd AGMA in Kapangan last Saturday, June 3.

The announcement of Bacoco’s appointment was generally met with indifference by the Members, none of whom raised the question whether the project supervisor can appoint any officer to serve duty beyond the supposed duration of the “project.”

With only two sessions remaining in the 3-day 3-venue AGMA, even the most inexperienced presiding officer would know to overrule any late objections, as when someone attempts to take exception during Session Day Two against an announcement made on Session Day One.

Everybody, of course, are aware of the 90-day limited period within which time district elections must be called to elect a new REGULAR board of directors.

NEA accepted that challenge when Administrator Almeda announced his famous “90-day game plan for normalization” of BENECO’s operation way back at the start of the year. It was all just for the Members to hold him accountable for that promise, being that they professed to “trust the process.”

I have not read the minutes of the Kapangan session, but from the limited information I have, the matter was not even put to a vote—nor was any matter put to a vote relating to the NEA-appointed “Task Force BENECO” remaining in place beyond June 1, 2023. That is plenty of time to lay the pathway to district elections, hold those elections and transition seamlessly to a newly-elected regular board.

Between the stricter provision requiring NEA to call election within 90 days of “stepping in” and a smaller collatilla that said NEA may call for those elections when it “determines that it is necessary” everybody surprisingly chose to follow the looser provision. I don’t understand why.

What happens now to Engr. Mel S. Licoben? Nothing. He remains as Assistant General Manager, as he has been for the last month and a half since completing his own 90-day suspension. In practical terms, he is still going to run the daily operations, but all his accomplishments will be chronicled in reports that will come under the signature of Bacoco. He is, at least to my understanding, still “untouchable” so long as his chief protector has not gotten tired and sore of still hearing the “MSL is my GM” choir in the background.

Perhaps, there could be a slight difference. Rafani was Licoben’s subordinate for years so he was not so keen about pulling rank on him. Bacoco, on the other hand, is a Department Manager of the busier Power Generation and Operations Department. I expect him to be more assertive than Rafani, who doesn’t play golf with Almeda and Magalong.

I yielded to vigorous demands from friends to help “school” whoever was interested about the subtleties of parliamentary procedures. But knowing the rules and having no specific agenda to push anyway is just like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It would have been more important to come to the meeting prepared to deliver a message—a WRITTEN statement—than hoping for a chance to ask exploratory questions. Only the naïve would have been surprised to get brushed aside, and even to have the microphone cut while you’re talking. After all, the AGMA is not a working committee, it is a plenary body that approves or disapproves initiatives that presumably have been through the deliberative mill.

Meetings (or formal “audiences”) could have been arranged with the Interim Board to raise all the urgent concerns of the Members. If those were unsuccessful, it is when the Members can threaten to introduce a Resolution during the AGMA expressing the sense of the Members on a particular issue, the inclusion of which in the agenda cannot be denied—and if denied would certainly be actionable in court. You can’t go to court simply complaining you were not allowed to talk. What would you have SAID?

I thought I had made it clear that the Members must be focused on what they wanted to achieve at the AGMA. Mere attendance in coordinated attire achieves nothing, not even symbolically given that mainstream media has seemingly chosen to ignore the event.

In my humble opinion, which can be valuable or totally worthless depending on where you sit, the effort to save BENECO should move on to the next critical aspect now: the fight to renew its franchise set to expire on March 20, 2028.

Right now NEA has not issued its Certification of Good Housekeeping to BENECO which is needed to lubricate the slipway for House Bill 6145—among other lubricants needed, of course, but that’s another post.*

(My special thanks to Drs. Joey P. Ancheta, Felinor Antonio, Bayani B. Tecson, Elaine Sherry T Samson, Karla Rhea R. Posadas, and Rhoda Lyn O. Fajardo, and the entire surgical staff of Notre Dame de Chartres Hospital for expertly removing my gallbladder in a thankfully-uneventful surgery on Monday, overseen by the Mighty Hand of God.)