7 more Lanao mayors join plunder suit vs electric coop, NEA execs

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Seven more mayors in Lanao del Sur have decided to file a plunder complaint against the manager of the Lanao del Sur Electric Coop. (Lasureco) and two government officials in the Office of the Ombudsman as the electric utility’s debt to its power suppliers ballooned to over P8 billion.

The filing of supplemental affidavits by Edna Benito of Balabagan, Nazruddin Maglangit of Kapatagan, Mamintal Razuman of Lumbatan, Macapado Benito, Sr. of Calanogas, Mamaulan Molok of Maguing, Mauyag Papandayan, Jr. of Tubaran, and Hamza Gauraki of Kapai this week brought to 34 the number of complainants against Lasureco manager Ashary Maongco and National Electrification Administration officials Edita Bueno and Digno Tumbokan.

Lawyer Bayan Balt, counsel for the 27 original complaining mayors, said on Wednesday that the seven local executives decided to sue Maongco, Bueno and Tumbokan after a Lasureco paid ad appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer last July 7.

From that ad, Balt said,  the mayors got confirmation that Maongco “diverted the pass-on charges intended for (Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.) and the (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines) for rehabilitation and construction of Lasureco headquarters.”

“This fund was worth P384 million, public funds that were realigned by the respondents without congressional fiat or authority in the General Appropriation Act,” Balt quoted from the rationale for the filing of the supplemental affidavits.

In the original complaint docketed in Office of Ombudsman in Quezon City as OMB-CC-14-0205, the initial set of complainants claimed that Maongco and the two NEA officials were involved in “questionable disbursements” of P190 million in barangay electrification funds, P25-million in pantawid kuryente fund, while the P603 million in payments collected from consumers in 2007-2012 were not remitted to Psalm and NGCP.

The Inquirer’s repeated attempts to get Maongco’s side failed.

But in a full-page letter to President Aquino published in the Inquirer on July 7, Lasureco officials led by Maongco, said the disconnection of 28 towns – not 32 as provincial officials had earlier claimed – was in line with the cooperative’s thrust of “No Pay, No Light Policy.”

“(Twenty-eight) of the municipalities were disconnected because they did not pay their power bills in spite of a memorandum of agreement entered into by and between the coop and the municipal mayors of Lanao,” the letter said. It added that power had been cut off only to four coastal towns when the line  serving the area was damaged by an act of sabotage.

Balt maintained that the disconnected towns were not remiss in their obligations and that the culprit was Lasureco’s one meter policy – power consumption in an entire town monitored by one electric meter only.

In the paid advertisement, Lasureco officials admitted the cooperative had installed only one meter per town “based on MOA” with mayors.

It said individual metering was not practical for an area where only 5 to 10 percent of the residents paid their bills.

“Lasureco cannot risk the lives of their personnel in disconnecting 90 percent of the members-consumers in certain locality,” the open letter said.

“If this is what Lasureco did, then where is the P20 million loaned by Lasureco from the NEA to be used exclusively for installing individual meters in the province or where is the P190-million Barangay Electrification Funds that NEA loaned to Lasureco?” Balt said.

Balt said Maongco and the other accused officials should answer the charges against them in a proper forum.

He said the Ombudsman,  in a July 9 order, directed Maongco, Bueno and Tumbokan to file their respective affidavits within 10 days.

“While the complainants are given the same period to reply, thereafter the case is submitted for resolution,” Balt said, quoting the order signed by Nellie Roguen-Golez, Ombudsman’s director for preliminary investigation, administrative, adjudication and monitoring.

“This is a positive development,” he said.

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