Beneco report card ‘in the pink’

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

Despite the odds encountered in its day to day operations, the Benguet Electric Cooperative appears healthy and in the pink of health as bared by a report card submitted to the media Wednesday by General Manager Gerardo Verzosa.

The signs are good. From being indebted more than a decade ago, the public utility now boasts of assets worth more than a billion. The latest indication is that Beneco inaugurated on July 18, 2009 a six-storey building at Abatan, Buguias.

But before that, there had been plenty of positive growth amid corporate woes. Aside from trimming down the outfit’s indebtedness, Beneco slimmed down by shifting manpower to automation – an unavoidable requirement for public utilities in these days.

Of course, this move got the ire of employees but most of the time, “all is well that ends well” so to speak, after the courts patched up problems involving common company-employee wrangling over separation fees.

Also, electric power consumers can not help but notice that Beneco has modernized and continues to upgrade its fleet of moving equipment and motor vehicles, thus improving competence in the delivery of its mandate in rural electrification.

In the past, power subscribers complained that Beneco was incompetent as it could not immediately respond to calls for repair of broken lines or burned transformers. Such situations resulted to blackouts that extended for as long as three days – despite the good weather.

I am sure that members of the Beneco board of old, a few of whom are now critical of the one and only electric coop in Baguio and Benguet for their own reasons, know these facts.

But how did such unwanted events arose? The reason is that the repairmen dispatched to fix the lines fail to reach the problematic sections most often than not, due to the simple fact that they become immobilized like rocks on the road when their old and beaten-up service trucks get stuck. This is what member-consumers expect with old and dilapidated service vehicles.

I know that some would say “look who’s talking” because they know that I drive around an old Volkswagen Beetle but then I do love my ‘old reliable’ and that is another story. Here, what we are plainly saying is that “conditioned and useful mobile equipment is justified in the end by first-class electric service,” at least.

Today, brown-outs are scheduled and even announced via multi-media, and do not last as long as a day. Electric pilferage has gone down and complaints are responded to faster than fast.

In terms of power connections, Beneco can now boast about lighting rural houses in the darkest nooks of Benguet, including those who, for the longest time, never benefited from the dams that flooded their backyards just to provide power for industries that made parts of this country wealthy.

In terms of social services, although GM Verzosa forgot to mention this in his report to the press, the Beneco board of directors had extended special assistance to indigent health patients provided that it had the means – and for as long as they had big hearts, which many of them always had. But not all of them.

Going back to the recently blessed Abatan building, Engr. Art Bacoco, the area manager said the new facility will now be the center for Beneco’s operation in northern Benguet which covers the towns of Mankayan, Bakun, part of Madaymen, Kibungan, part Atok, Kabayan and Buguias,

With its new and wider facility, Beneco is expected to improve its services in the area. It takes care of meter connections, line maintenance, meter reading and billing, collection of payments and offers pre-membership seminars.

Engr. Bacoco described the modern edifice as a multi-purpose building with a function hall and staff room on the two uppermost floors. The first and second levels are for maintenance offices, utility rooms and employees’ quarters.

The third and fourth floors are for a vocational school that could be replicated in other towns, one way by which Beneco may be able to plow back to its clients their ‘dividends’ from the cooperative, even if no actual shares of stocks were bought by them in the first place.

Engr. Bacoco said the building took more than a year to be finished as it was started to be built in January 2008. It is worth around P15 million. To date Beneco owns five buildings, including the one in Abatan. The others are located at the DPS area and Happy Glen Loop in Baguio, a building at Km.4, La Trinidad, and the main building side by side a warehouse cum supply depot and mechanical shop at Brgy. Alapang.

In the exchange following Beneco’s report, GM Verzosa threw back to the media an answer by way of a question when the topic was about Baguio ’s inconsistencies in allowing electrical connections to applicants who do not have building permits.

He asked: “Why is a department head over and above a city ordinance? In the first place why did the city council pass the ordinance kung hindi naman pala maipapatupad?”

Maybe the question should have been: “Manu ti bayadan ijay city hall tapnu maka kabit ka? Of course, those who have the experience know the answer.

Btw, to do away with foolish thoughts that this space has become the mouthpiece of the cooperative, I say that this is merely my honest and truthful observation as an independent columnist-reporter and at the same time a member-consumer just like anybody else.

Anyway, hooray to all electric consumers in Baguio and Benguet for making Beneco what it is today, to the few selfless politicians who unselfishly shared part of their congressional initiatives that benefited far-flung consumers even if this was unprofitable for the cooperative, and to those who successfully managed Beneco by steering it from rough roads to stable grounds. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com