Politics caused Abra blackout - coop exec

BANGUED, Abra – Abra’s total blackout on Monday showed local politics’ “dark side” in this province, an electric cooperative chief said.

"The blackout has political underpinning as the governor wants me out at the expense of the 47,000 member-consumers and Abrenios as a whole," Abra Electric Cooperative (Abreco) General Manager Loreto Seares, Jr. said.

With private-run Aboitiz Power Renewables, Inc. cutting off its supply on Monday noon for an unpaid P4.9 million electricity fee and restoring it at 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon after the cooperative paid its dues,  Seares said Abreco’s woe was “made as a pawn to forward a political agenda.”

Abreco was reportedly asking Aboitiz two to five days to pay its current bill, but the supplier refused.

Strongly sensing local politics into play, Seares said, “Why put the people of Abra pawns in politics,” suspecting Gov. Eustaquio Bersamin has a lackey to replace him as chief of the cooperative ahead of the 2013 polls.

Instead of helping Abrenios, a political agenda went on with its way to “even ask Aboitiz to cut off instead of helping us ask the private firm to wait for more days until collections are at hand for the payment,” Seares said.

Just as power went off Monday noon, Abreco Board President David Guzman, Jr. reportedly received a phone call from the camp of Bersamin insinuating that the provincial government could have saved the scenario ‘with Seares out from the cooperative’.

The new Philippine Cooperative Code bans political intervention into the internal affairs of cooperatives.

“I did not expect that the father of the province himself would sacrifice Abrenios for his political agenda,” Seares said about his uncle-in-law. 

“It runs counter to the legacy of good governance,”  the Abreco manager added.

Bersamin, however, denies he has any hand with the power cut-off.  “The governor has no executive power over a cooperative,” he said as he lashed out accusations of meddling as simply not true.

During the blackout, very reliable sources said Bersamin was scratching his head about the situation ‘apparently because his fighting cocks in Pennarubia town could not stand the heat without air-conditioning units.'

Meanwhile, Abra Rep. Jocelyn Bernos, vice-chairperson of the House committee on Cooperative Development, is reportedly exhausting all efforts to help Abreco overcome the mess.

Aboitiz signed an agreement with Abreco on Dec. 26, 2011,  to provide electricity to all 27 municipalities in Abra (295 barangays from its total of 303 barangays).