The National Electrification Administration (NEA) recently made its boldest statement yet in justifying its takeover of the Palawan Electric Cooperative (PALECO) a year ago. In a press briefing in Puerto Princesa the other day, NEA Administrator Antonio Almeda described the erstwhile PALECO board as “politicized” and boasted of the achievements of the interim NEA-installed board, including the lowering of power rates across the island province.
Almeda also asserted that with the Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC) committing to invest in Palawan’s power infrastructure, the replaced PALECO board could not be trusted to manage such an opportunity.
By declaring the former PALECO board “politicized,” NEA disclosed a performance evaluation it had not even cited as the basis for its takeover in January last year. On official record, NEA merely invoked “exigency of service” and pointed to Palawan’s power supply problems and service delivery issues. It was not explicit about the board being “politicized.”
But Almeda’s conclusion that the old board could not be trusted to manage the MIC partnership is particularly telling. The implication is that MIC’s interest in investing to upgrade the Palawan mainland transmission grid requires “professional” management that only the interim NEA board can provide.
This raises the question of whether NEA is laying the groundwork for transforming a member-owned cooperative into something else entirely—one perhaps more amenable to MIC’s investment and centralized control.
This concern is reinforced by the opacity of NEA’s claims and its promise of a brownout-free Palawan once MIC’s investment materializes.
Almeda also boasted about reduced power rates as if they were the direct result of the new board’s actions. That is misleading. Palawan’s electric bills spiked because the Department of Energy removed the subsidy from one of PALECO’s major suppliers, Delta P. The return to subsidized rates was already built into the new power supply agreement with the same company, an agreement processed by the old PALECO board. It was not conceived by NEA’s interim board.
Equally eyebrow-raising is NEA’s announcement that PALECO, under the interim board, achieved Triple-A cooperative status, framed as a “first in its 52-year history.” An evaluator grading its own intervention presents an obvious conflict of interest. What exactly changed in PALECO’s operations during the interim board’s one-year tenure to justify this jump in rating? We do not know, and NEA has not explained it.
If NEA can retroactively justify intervention by pointing to improvements that would have happened anyway, then no cooperative is safe from takeover. The characterization of PALECO’s elected board as incompetent and politically compromised goes beyond criticism. Based on observable dynamics on the ground, it appears to be groundwork for transforming a member-owned cooperative into something else entirely—something more amenable to outside investment and centralized control, something that answers to capital rather than community.
The private sector’s interest in PALECO’s franchise is hardly a secret. For years, independent power producers have supplied electricity to the cooperative, gaining intimate knowledge of the market’s potential. Palawan’s tourism-driven growth makes the province an attractive market. A private distribution utility could extract profits from what a cooperative merely administers. The question is not whether private interests want PALECO’s franchise—it is how long before the political will to resist them fully erodes.
