Baguio street lights flicker; Ifugao situation noted

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- It was enlightening to learn from Guisad Kapitan and Benguet Electric Cooperative Director Ferdy Bayasen additional information on the status of the patay-sindi street lights of Baguio - just like the "flickering" attitude of some councilors in the city.

Let me use as an example the street light fronting our house at New Lucban. The dead-end road where the street light stands is the same road used by Pines National High School-Magsaysay Annex, Tabora Elementary School and Magsaysay Elementary School .

It leads to an alley that connects to Magsaysay Private Road , hence, the passage way of residents and college students any time of the day and during night time.

That is also the road-alley used as an escape route by magnanakaws, cellphone snatchers and other criminal elements who hound the university belt.

Our old house in New Lucban is lucky to have a street light at the front gate. Problem is the street light no longer serves its purpose as this has been out of order for almost one year now.

Family members and I have already gotten exhausted in asking authorities to fix the street light because anyway, I have never seen city engineers accede to such requests. The same street light has not been functioning well since I can remember when.

And so, everytime it fails, I ask friends and managers of Beneco if they can pass by New Lucban and check to find out what is wrong with the street light. But I have not done that for quite a time now because of the continuing battle on who should manage the street lights in the city.

The issue here is whether it should be the city or Beneco who should be responsible in fixing the light fixtures. Whether the city pays Beneco for 10-burning hours or 12-burning hours is a matter that can be resolved through technical computation and negotiation.

And while this goes on, Beneco has to forgive their counterparts for political grandstanding and for the media mileage they get out of the prolonged discussions.

In our very informal exchange with Kapitan Ferdy “Healthy Baby” Bayasen, he said the 12-burning hours paid by some LGUs outside of Baguio to their local electric power provider is standard practice under the Energy Regulatory Commission.

Director Bayasen, said the ERC standard of 12-burning hours has been adopted by the Leyte Electric Cooperative in Tacloban, Baseco in Bukidnon and lately by the Municipality of La Trinidad in Benguet.

For INEC in Ilocos Norte, its management has decided to install meters on street lights and have the LGUs maintain the repairs. This is more costly for LGUs and has not been beneficial to the residents of Ilocos Norte.

In addition, any electric cooperative has the manpower, the expertise, tools and equipment that are needed to fix electrical facilities, including public street lights. I doubt if the city has the manpower, expertise, tools and equipment that Beneco already has.

Of course, the budget annually allocated for the maintenance of thousands of Baguio street lights may now be spent for other equally important matters.

Responsible LGU officials who do care for the safety of their taxpayers who provide them their salaries and other benefits should easily understand that.

On the other hand, it should also be understood that the income of some sectors in the city government will be cut off once management of street lights is placed under Beneco. That includes the purchase of electrical facilities that could run to millions.

What their constituents want is safety of their communities and their children who have no other choice but to pass through dark streets and alleys at the mercy of criminal elements because the city has denied them that.
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“We have noticed that there is a prevailing mindset among our people that capitol is an employment agency. We intend to change this perception by employing only must-needed personnel starting from the Office of the Governor. We hope that our other officials, departments and hospitals will follow suit.”

Thus, Ifugao Governor Eugene Balitang wrote in an update report which he e-mailed to his kababayans and supporters. But before that, in the same mail, Gov. Balitang said: “we have a critical situation at the governor’s office.”

He was reacting to a situation where the provincial government has a payable amount of P2.2 million for job orders (JOs) that were hired under the previous administration. I am looking at it as a “pay when able,” not “payable.” I also found out from his letter that the governor’s office was left with only P960,000 for July to December of this year.

According to him, they allowed the remaining money of P960,000 to pay the month’s salary of each of the JOs under the governor’s office. With that, there is still a balance of P1.24 million. There was no choice left but to pay.

Gov. Balitang’s problem now is that Ifugao has a number of angry JOs who may no longer receive their remaining salaries; while on the other hand, there are irate supporters who may not be employed as JOs because the province has a “zero” budget until December.

However, for general services under the governor’s office, he is asking for a small budget in the coming supplemental budget, which he said, is just enough to support the employment of basic personnel augmentation such as spare drivers, data encoder, clerk, utility worker.

Balitang’s party-mate in the Liberal, then governor Teddy Baguilat who is now congressman of Ifugao, of course has the means to look for possible fund sources so the remaining salaries of the JOs can be fully paid.

I heard Gov. Balitang say that Congressman Baguilat promised to help pay the remaining balance of unpaid salaries. That is good news for the JOs and the governor. What is bad and politically dangerous is if the unpaid JOs throw their anger on Balitang for a problem that he did not create. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com