By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
What has Beneco done to seek payment of the debts of its directors or officers? Those amounts, totaling millions and millions of pesos, could have been used to lower the electric bills of member-consumer-owners.
How about what was publicized on Facebook regarding unqualified employees? For every position, there are required qualifications. Anybody who does not have those should not have been hired in the first place. Now that a number of them are in Beneco’s payroll and were foisted on the public’s eye, what is the management(?) doing about it?
Thanks to Facebook, the public has been warned about these and so many other things the past many weeks. So the people are aware. Even if there appears to be a noisy minority, the majority were not and are not being swayed by rhetoric. They have made up their minds as to who are the bad guys.
Where does this put politicians who came out in the open supporting one group of the protagonists in the current Beneco story? They have alienated the other protagonists. Thus, those who sided with the noisy minority, have lost the votes of the silent majority who are enduring high electricity rates which could have been avoided or made lower through good corporate culture.
What is bad corporate culture? Lending millions and millions of pesos to officers or directors is one. Now such obligations are looming to become bad debts. Who will bear the cost of such scandalous blunder? The member consumers.
Now there is this story, also publicized on Facebook. It was alleged that a big part of the crowd which took over the South Drive Beneco headquarters (a concrete example of bad management) was composed of “hakot” from Wright Park and from the Trading Post in La Trinidad, Benguet. The word “hakot” was notorious during the dying years of President Ferdinand Marcos’ reign. His henchmen would “hakot” people in provinces near Metro Manila to join pro-Marcos rallies at the Luneta Park. It resulted in his family’s being driven out of the country
Then there is the salacious story of a lady who was appointed to a Beneco position for which she was not qualified. Allegedly this was because she was the girlfriend of somebody who was her immediate superior. Well, this guy seemed to be hounded by similar allegations wherever he went.
But in fairness, let us hear the official version from Beneco directors and officials or suspended officials and directors. To make simpler to deny or to admit, let us put it as questions: Do directors and officials have outstanding obligations to Beneco in the millions and millions of pesos? Were some officers or employees hired by Beneco even if they did not have the qualifications? Were people “hauled” or “nahakot” to be part of the crowd that stormed the South Drive headquarters of Beneco, as earlier mentioned, for a fee of P500.00 per head but only received P300.00 when payment time came?
In the meantime, nothing has been settled yet at Beneco. It ain’t over until it’s over.
But this whole thing is resulting in something positive— bad management acts are coming out of the woodwork. And come the next election of Beneco directors, these will be trumpeted about for all and sundry to hear and appreciate.
Better still if a new group will be in power at Beneco who will be sincere in cleansing that so called cooperative. If that happens, it will be a long time of reckoning. Cases will be filed against those who misbehaved which will add to the colorful spectacle.
So let us sit back, watch and enjoy how things are unfolding there. After all, something good will come out from all the noise of those involved, including those who might lose their jobs, or their businesses with Beneco.**
