Cash-strapped Abreco seeks Duterte’s help

By Freddie G. Lazaro

BANGUED, Abra — Member-consumers of the Abra Electric Company(Abreco) are appealing to President Duterte for assistance to salvage their cash-strapped electric cooperative, which has long sought the help of the National Electrification Administration to no avail.

Over 30,000 member-consumers of Abreco, through general manager Loreto Seares Jr., sent a letter to the President last Jan. 18 with hope of bringing their “serious predicament” to his attention.

A series of sufferings, which the Abreco member-consumers termed as “misfortunes in its operations,” were a result of its meager resources to sustain its operations as exclusive distributor of electricity to its members in Abra and precipitated further by the long-delayed release of the assistance package which the cooperative has been asking NEA, the letter to the President explained.

Seares Jr. said their decades-old 5-mega volume ampere (MVA) substation in Bangued was busted before New Year’s Eve which resulted in a province-wide blackout for over a week.

“Our other transformers and the whole standard connection facilities badly need replacement and upgrading. Equipment, material, and service vehicles are inadequate,” the letter stated.

“Abreco is also saddled with a big personnel size which we could not streamline after the DOLE-NLRC shot us down with several rulings; we cannot revive the mothballed 5 MVA substation project outside the capital town because of lack of funds,” said Seares Jr.

These problems, the cooperative explained to President Duterte, “have been included in the technical, financial and administrative assistance it has been asking NEA since 2014.

“Amidst us, complying with the documentary requirement and implementing the operation improvement program which NEA has endorsed as a pre-requisite to the release of the latter’s assistance, the much-needed help had not come,” Abreco members said.

“After three years and counting, we are still waiting for the said NEA assistance,” Seares Jr. said.