NEWS: “I’m no protege of Cee O”- Briz

Daneco prexy says

By Cha Monforte, Rural Urban News

MAR 17

Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco) board president Dean Briz shrugged off tag of him that he is a protege of Tagum City Mayor Rey Chiong Uy citing his credentials and capacity to lead the billionaire cooperative.

“Di ko tuta ni Cee O. Unsa man ko, way buot? Nga paambakon ko ni mayor gikan sa third floor aning SP building, moambak pod ko? I’m a CPA and I need not be dictated. I know what I’m doing.,” he said in an interview inside his City Budget Office in the first floor. He is the city budget officer.

Briz said that the word protege to him did connote that he as a Daneco official is “unthinking, just following” the beck and call of the mayor.

“The point is Daneco as an organization needs to connect with local government unit which could valuably help Daneco,” he added as he cited the mayor’s accomplishment of clearing stray trees, branches and other objects that fall into Daneco power distribution lines which had caused for half of brownouts and power interruptions before the city government contracted the clearing operations throughout the city franchise area.

Briz also laughed off allegations that the mayor and Uy family including Compostela Valley Governor Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy have been planning to privatize Daneco, saying that even the more influential Aboitiz family owning the Davao Light failed to get Daneco before through privatization since “the franchise area of Daneco was made through an Act of Congress.”

He added that unless there is a new act of Congress giving Daneco’s franchise area to private entities, then privatization can occur.

Four years ago, Mayor Uy convened a power summit in Tagum City as his officials called to make Daneco in Tagum City a separate entity.

Tagum City alone eats up about 40 percent of Daneco’s total power consumption and hence contributes almost a half to its income due to the high power bills of the city’s industrial and commercial users such as the malls.

The city cross-subsidizes the cost of electricity of far-flung, non-feasible towns and barangays in Samal Island, Compostela Valley and Davao del Norte and has been instrumental in Daneco’s attaining of its objective of rural electrification.

Briz underscored the importance of the help of LGUs in attaining the rural electrification objective and said that the Uys are just concerned to bring reforms and changes to make its service and management better and effective in serving the power consumers and the public

“Had Daneco not a public utility, Cee O would not have cared for Daneco,” he said.

Briz has been leading several board directors in trying to oust and replace current OIC general manager Allan Laniba, who continued to hold sway over his position with the backing of some board directors and the legal department of the National Electrification Administration. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News)

Filed under: daneco, Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco), Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco) board president Dean Briz

OPINION: The anatomy of Darjan’s List

BLOGISTA

By Cha Monforte

feb 2

The Darjan’s List containing the 54 deficiencies that Daneco director-treasurer Ananias Darjan Jr enumerated during the January 23, 1020 failed ouster bid of OIC general manager Allan Laniba appeared like skeletons in the closet of Daneco finally unveiled. We’ll bare these one by one based on my interview with Darjan last January 27.

The list covers financial, technical and organizational matters and processes, and we reiterate that most of these have been occurring before Laniba assumed as Daneco OIC GM. Being only 9 months at the management helm, Laniba is not therefore supposed to the target and the one who’ll get all the blame for these. We’ll also be proactive than be prosecutorial and judgmental, in taking a sort of ride with the procrastinations of Briz and Co. In his list, Darjan first premised that the only thing that Laniba as OIC GM cannot do is to hire and fire and he can do the rest of other things in the power cooperative.

Urgent technical, nay electrical problems that need immediate solutions are threatening Daneco now. The 5 mega volt (MV)-capacity submarine cable connecting Samal Island has already reached 3.9 MV to 4.1 MV in power transmission and consumption which Darjan figured is already in “critical point” since what is allowable only 80-percent power usage while the 20-percent standby power capacity is meant for power surges. Besides, Darjan warned that power sub-stations in Canocotan, Tagum and Asuncion town are already overloaded and the sub-station in Mirafuentes, Tagum is accordingly already beyond its effective life. “Now what to do on these? What if one of these sub-stations blow up after reaching the maximum limit? Darjan asked. Surely, brownout in affected areas would last for six months, the minimum period when replacement would be made crashed sub-station. But quite visibly, these problems Darjan presented were not the making of Laniba as these already emerged prior Laniba’s assumption as OIC GM.

To improve the submarine cable for Samal Island , Daneco needs P90-P100 million, while Canocotan sub-station alone needs P50-60 million, he reckoned. The search for solution for this alone pesters the mind since as he bared Daneco as of July 2009 was already buried in debt amounting to a total of about PP351 million that by January 20 this year Daneco was forced to borrow another P30 million from Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca) just to cover the deficiency for its monthly payments to power and transmission suppliers Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation and National Grid Corporation of the Philippines. Without this P30 million borrowing, Daneco’s A+ rating would be affected besides that it could incur high surcharges in case of failure to pay on schedule. The borrowing was resorted as Daneco had already been bleeding as gauged alone in its accumulated loss of about P17 million in January-August 2009 period.

When Briz, Darjan and Co. further dipped its finger to the turf of management, they had obviously caught hands in the cookie jar. But since the wayward processes are what they are after for, revelations of particular organizational states are just fine for finger-pointing and blaming these solely to Laniba. So they found out “over expenses” in the per diems and allowances and cost of participation relating travels, trainings and seminars of Daneco officials and employees. One case he cited was the training of 12 employees instead sending only one to two Daneco participants who would then make reecho of seminar learnings with their co-employees after they arrived from official travel. Darjan said they had already addressed this to reduce traveling expenditures of Daneco officials and employees. (To be continued)

******

BLOGS AND BITS: What survey? Tagum City mayoralty candidates must have already contested survey results claiming that ex-Governor Yayong Gementiza is the survey topnotcher in mayoralty race. But Tagum City Vice Mayor Allan Rellon said it is Mayor Rey Chiong Uy who is No. 1 and not Yayong. Maybe there two surveys- one favoring Yayong and another one favoring CO, with both mayoral rivals Cong. Arrel Olano and Cesar Cuntapay landing as survey losers…. The claim that Daneco OIC GM Allan Laniba is the most influential person in most of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Igacos is superfluous. Rather, by now, Laniba is the most power-ful person, in literal and electrical sense, in the said provinces where Daneco distributes electricity. Ayaw ko’ng makuryente…. Fr. Em-Em Luego, the Sto. Tomas priest running for mayor in Davao del Norte, participated in the latest priests’ congress in Manila . Time for front-running Fr. Em-Em to take a pause as reelectionist Mayor Max Estela had already rested in the hospital last December for overfatigue.…Mabini Mayor Hadji Amir Munoz in Compostela Valley is running for his second term without good rivals. He has built a new public market and bus terminal during his first term, the possible reason why ex-Mayor for three terms and now Vice Mayor Rey Dayanghirang chose a convenient option- not to run against Munoz but to seek reelection in tandem with him as vice mayor…. Boardmember Greg Facula’s mayoralty run for a comeback is feasible for electoral victory. He can bank on the thousands of ward followers he had helped during his three terms as mayor of B. Dujali town in Davao del Norte (e-mail: chamonforte@yahoo.com)

Filed under: Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco), Daneco sex scandal, daneco website

NEWS: Daneco power rates up by P1 per kwh seen in ERC-proposed rules on “wheeling rates”

ERC proposal slammed by member-consumers

may 31

 

The new rules in setting “wheeling” power rates of electric cooperative as proposed by the Energy Regulatory Commission could result into overall average increases in power rates of Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco) amounting to almost P1 every year per kilowatt hour for the next three years.

ERC Commissioner Jose Reyes on Saturday’s public consultation at the Daneco main office in Montevista, Compostela Valley said that the ”wheeling rates” are proposed as a new regulatory framework in the setting of power rates for electric cooperatives to adjust it with the “real prices” adding that the prices of power have already been deflated through the past years.

“This is also to make electric cooperatives give better service to their member-consumers,” he said.

But Daneco member and retired Daneco employee Priscilla Bartonico during the open forum slammed the ERc proposal saying that the increase of power rates generated by the proposed rules would hit hard Daneco’s residential consumers calling it “a great burden”.

She appealed to Daneco’s Board of Directors (BOD) not to approve the ERC-proposed rules otherwise review and make new methodology to make rates’ increases affordable “based on conservative budget”.

In Daneco simulated computation on the impact of the proposed rules various power user-categories, projected to increase per year per kilowatt hour were residential by 15.50 centavos or 43-percent increase, commercial by 4.95 centavos or 23-percent increase, public building by 4.61 centavos or 21-percent increase, industrial by 12.56 centavos or 90-percent increase, while projected to decrease were street lighting by 69.21 centavos or 72-percent decrease and industrial large load by 42-percent drop.

Offset against among each other, the simulation generated a net and overall average of 86.3 centavos or 31-percent increase.  

Even some members of Daneco BOD were not happy of the ERC proposal.

Daneco Director Dean Briz also questioned the proposed rules citing the detrimental implications of increased power rates to the member-consumers.

He said that they only got hold a copy of the endorsement of the rules as sent Daneco OIC General Manager Allan Laniba.

But Reyes said that the the ERC also based its proposal from the figures given by the Daneco management as basis in the formulation of the draft of the rules on “wheeling rates”.

He said though that the rules would still be subject to the approval of Daneco’s annual general assembly this coming August 30.

He added that it is “not the rates but the rules” being sought for approval by electric cooperatives nationwide.

With the wheeling rates, which would adjust power rates either increase or decrease based on the formula in the methodololgy, electric cooperatives could save from the costly process of public hearings and follows ups in Manila, the ERC commissioner said. 

In the ERC timetable, the rules’ effectivity would be September 26, 2009 or 15 days after its publication.

BOD chair Dr. Antonio Sembumpan also squelched start-up howl of protestation of attending members saying the board would thoroughly review the proposed rules before it would be submitted to the general assembly.

Meanwhile, Laniba in an interview said that the draft rules would cause a 200-percent decrease or a significant P2 drop per kilowatt hour in the power rates for street lighting.

He added that the it would also give opportunity for Daneco to recover the real property taxes levied by local government units to Daneco’s power lines and facilities.       

Moreover,  Reyes bared that there was still ERC’s provisional approval in the the last increase of power rates charged by power generator where he said Mindanao got lowest increase of power rates compared to Visayas which had about 83 centavos increase per kilowatt hour.   (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News)

Filed under: BOD chair Dr. Antonio Sembumpan, Daneco Director Dean Briz, Daneco employee Priscilla Bartonico, Daneco OIC General Manager Allan Laniba, Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco), BOD chair Dr. Antonio Sembumpan, Daneco Director Dean Briz, Daneco employee Priscilla Bartonico, Daneco OIC General Manager Allan Laniba, Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco)