MORE NEWS, BENGUET

Beneco board approves spot market participation

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- The Benguet Electric Coop. Inc. board unanimously approved three resolutions granting Beneco to directly participate at the Wholesale Electric Spot Market (WESM) in their March 4 special meeting.

The board approved the management's recommendation for Beneco’s registration as a direct participant in the wholesale electricity spot market under Resolution 32-2008.

The second resolution approved is the renewal of Beneco’s transistion supply contract (TSC) with the National Power Corp. at 15,400,000 kilowatthours for April 2008 and 14,000,000 kilowatthours this coming May and June.

The third approved resolution authorized Beneco’s general manager to open a letter of credit to serve as the "prudential requirement" for the Beneco’s registration as a direct participant in the WESM.

“The March 25, 2008 expiration of Beneco’s contract with the NPC with the Beneco board’s approval, will provide a window of opportunity for Beneco to already trade and participate at the WESM,” said Beneco general manager Gerardo P. Verzosa.

Beneco’s contract with NPC is renewed quarterly. NPC and Mirant supplies about 97 % of Beneco’s power requirement (NPC-68%, Mirant 29%, others -3%), according to engineer Mario Gayao Beneco WESM specialist.

The NPC’s function as the default wholesale supplier (DWS) will end by June as mandated by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

All power purchases of electric cooperatives will be sourced either from the WESM or bilateral contracts.

Should the NPC function as DWS gets extended, energy purchases beyond the Minimum Energy Off-Take (MEOT) with the NPC will be charged with a premium rate. Energy purchases beyond the contract will be subject to a 10% increase of the cost of NPC Time of Use (TOU) or WESM Load Weighted Average Price (LWAP) cost whichever is higher, according to Gayao.

“Electric Cooperatives’ participation to the WESM is required by law (EPIRA), the DWS issue with the ERC will expose us (Beneco) to risks anyway, and based on the Ilocos Norte Electric Coop. experience, it is worthwhile to try WESM,” Verzosa told the board.

The board approved Verzosa’s recommendation to decrease the MEOT contract of Beneco with the NPC in anticipation of Beneco’s participation at the WESM.

Prior to the board approval, INEC’s general manager and a professional electrical engineer Renato Balintec presented INEC’s experience to the board.Balintec said, though there are risks and birth pains involved, once the coop has familiarized and learned to trade, there are also rewards in terms of lower rates.

“INEC has invested about P9 million when they started to participate at the WESM in 2006… and now has P28 million in the bank,” according to Balintec. But the ERC is still quiet on how the P28 million will be used.

The Beneco corporate planning office presented the cost comparison of the NPC/Mirant generation cost to that of the WESM that was the basis of the BENECO management’s recommendation to the Board.

“Since Beneco’s WESM participation is inevitable because it is required by law, it is prudent for Beneco to start learning the art of trading (electricity),” Beneco board president and lawyer Benny Bomogao said explaining their unanimous vote.

Under the EPIRA law’s section 30, the “Department of Energy shall establish a WESM that shall provide the mechanism for identifying and setting the price of actual variations from the quantities transacted under contracts between sellers and purchasers of electricity.”


Benguet veggie farmers losing opportunities to train in China

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Farmers in this vegetable-producing province have lost several opportunities to train in China on how to produce quality agricultural crops without heavily using chemicals and pesticides in the production process because of minor differences.

This was bared by Dr. Charles Cheng, one of the leaders of the Filipino-Chinese Community in Baguio City and Benguet, who added the refusal of farmers to pay their air fare to China has bungled their opportunity to be trained on organic agricultural production.

However, he said the local Chinese community is still willing to help farmers train in China on how to produce big and quality agricultural crops which are globally competitive in order for them to earn a descent income for their families.

In the 1990s, some farmers in the province were invited to train in China and were required to pay their fare from the Philippines to China and vice versa while the sponsors will take care of everything but those chosen wanted the trip to be all expenses paid by the sponsors which resulted in the project being called off.

Cheng said local farmers must learn to minimize the use of chemicals and pesticides in the production of their crops because the health of their consumers and their families are the ones being compromised.

He called on local farmers to learn how to sacrifice a little so that they will be equipped with the proper knowledge and skills especially from the Chinese farmers on how to produce quality crops with lesser farm inputs.

Dennis Sy, president of the Baguio Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said that one of the major setbacks in the local agriculture industry is the blatant failure of farmers to comply with their commitments especially for contract growers.

According to him, farmers tend to sell their products to other buyers especially when the market price is much higher than the buying price of their benefactors, thus, food chains and high-end consumers have lost their trust and confidence to the local farmers.

At the same time, Sy cited that the lack of crop programming is a major deterrent in the stability of prices of local agricultural crops since there is an over supply of vegetables particularly when the buying price is high, thus, the law of supply and demand will prevail thereby affecting the income of farmers.

The local businessman recommended that local farmers must form a strong cooperative so they will have the bargaining power to deal with contract growers and high-end consumers for a better price of their products and not to be cheated by middlemen especially when the transaction is done on individual basis where the farmer is always at the losing end.


Police arrest wanted persons
CAMP DANGWA, Benguet – Police arrested wanted persons last week in different parts of the region.

In Pinukpuk town in Kalinga, police police led by PCI Joe Baday arrested a certain Noel Brillantes y Saking, 26, married, farmer and resident of Barangay Bayao for frustrated murder.

On March 15, same police personnel nabbed Gabriel Balcanao y Bangit, 38, married, farmer and resident of Barangay Dugpa for robbery with violence.

Both warrants of arrest for the suspects were issued by Judge Marcelino Wacas of
Regional Trial Court, 2nd judicial region Branch 25 in Tabuk City.

In Bangued, Abra on March 22 at Barangay Calaba, personnel of 1601st PPMG conducting patrol at said place arrested two Fred Laureta Apolinar, 29 and Romeo Almazan y Biserra, 42, widower, both married, fishermen and residents of said place for illegal possession of firearms.

Confiscated from Apolinar was one Cal. 45 pistol loaded with one magazine containing six bullets while Alamzan was found in possession of one Cal. 38 revolver loaded with four bullets.

In Ifugao on March 20 at barangay San Quintin, Alfonso Lista town, Senior Insp. Emmanuel Viernes received a cell phone call from PO2 Leonardo Macaraeg saying group of male persons were y cutting Gmelina trees at the farm of his father in-law, Ricardo Agruda, located at Barangay San Quintin.

Viernes dispatched a team to validate the report who coordinated with the barangay captain Marcos Bunguihan.

The team saw the group who already cut Gmelina trees into different lumber sizes. When accosted, they could not present any permit to cut from the CENRO-DENR which prompted the responding team to apprehend them.

The following persons were arrested for illegal cutting of trees and qualified theft: Eddie Pannoman y Sigway, 40, married, farmer; Orlan Ancheta y Ibarra, 39, married; Warlito Vilarde Y Prudencio, 42; former CAFGU member, Domingo bantiyan y Pallay, 46, married and Benjamin Vilarde y Prudencio, 56, all residents of above mentioned place.

Confiscated from the group were one chain saw and four pieces sawn lumber of undetermined amount cut in different sizes.

The arrested persons were brought to San Quintin Police Station for investigation.