The National Center of Electric Cooperatives’ Consumers (NCECCO) has elected former National Electrification Administration (NEA) administrator Edgardo Rama Masongsong as its Secretary-General.
NCECCO is the national organization of Electric Cooperatives’ (ECs) MCOs or Member-Consumer-Owners that espouses a vision of being a vanguard of the rights and interests of all electricity consumers nationwide, which Masongsong upholds to pursue in his acceptance speech in a virtual National Convention held on January 20, 2022, as the organization commemorates its 5th founding anniversary.
Masongsong said he will mobilize the MCOs nationwide to work for the EC franchises not to be taken over through corporate greed of the oligarchs.
Masongsong further declared that he will support ECs, its Board of Directors (BODs), Leadership and Management who have been committed and sincerely implemented MCO Empowerment Program which he pursued as a strategic concern and priority of all ECs during his term as the NEA Administrator.
He said, he will look into the welfare of the MCOs most especially in terms of service and power reliability, system efficiency, and affordable, if not cheap electricity rates.
He further said that he will initiate a performance audit of EC leadership and management on the basis of competence and competitiveness as against complacency and ineptitude, corruption, and personal interests.
He will mobilize the MCOs nationwide to work for the EC franchises not to be taken over through corporate greed of the oligarchs, and vow to go after their agents who are in the government especially those at the DOE and NEA, among others, who are perceived anti-cooperatives, anti-poor, pro-oligarchs, or worst, are oligarchs themselves.
He will pursue political activism, one of the 7-point Advocacies he has been espousing, to ensure representation of the One EC-MCO Movement in the legislative branch of government that will enact laws beneficial to the ECs and MCOs. He further called on all MCOs nationwide to support a chosen presidential candidate who has the heart for the ECs, whom the movement can have direct access to, competent enough to lead the country, with unquestionable integrity. He also called on all MCOs to support candidates for vice-president, senators, who are pro-electric cooperatives, pro-rural development, anti-oligarchs, and not themselves, oligarchs.
Moreover, he said that he will pursue resource mobilization through banking and rural enterprise development. This is his concrete plan in attaining ownership by the MCOs and the rural communities of the vital industries such as power, water, telecommunications, internet services and media outfits. Masongsong is a firm believer that this is the means towards genuine social equitability.
Masongsong assures that he will look into the welfare of the MCOs most especially in terms of service and power reliability, system efficiency and affordable, if not cheap electricity rates.
He pledged before some 1,000 delegates to the virtual NCECCO 5th founding anniversary and National Convention to serve as the genuine champion of the MCOs versus the pseudo-organizations of electricity and or utility consumers with only personal and vested interests.
Along with the late Vice-President Emmanuel N. Pelaez, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and General Pedro G. Dumol considered the great pillars of the rural electrification program, he vows to be a reliable pillar to ensure that the rural electrification movement will continue to serve in the next decades.
He even quoted the dictum of the late Fr. Francisco G. Silva, former PARE and NEA Administrator, whom he considered his guru and mentor, which says: “He will bulldoze anybody who will block his way” if only to pursue the objectives of (1) preserving the gains of Rural Electrification, (2) sustaining the existence of the ECs, and (3) protecting the rights and interests of the MCOs, which Masongsong believes are key factors to ensure the best interests of the ECs and MCOs, of realizing the Rural Electrification Program’s vision of Rural Development that is sustainable, of attaining the dream of genuine EQUITABILITY that has been so ELUSIVE.
Edgardo Rama Masongsong or ERM as he is fondly addressed by the leadership of the ECs and MCOs, is himself an MCO, one of the Founding Members and Organizer of NCECCO, a former General Manager of an EC, a former Representative of an EC-MCO PL during the 16th Congress, a Warrior of Light, Advocate of Sustainable Rural Development and Nation Building, considered the Supremo or the Supreme Knight of Light of the One EC-MCO Movement.
