Consumer group Power Watch Negros Advocates Inc. reiterated its opposition Friday to the holding of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative’s 43rd Annual General Membership Assembly (AGMA) on Sunday, September 26.
The Power Watch members, in a position paper released by Wennie Sancho, said they refuse “to amend, rescind and ratify any document or legal instrument in this AGMA which we declare to be illegal.”
They stressed in the position paper that the AGMA “violates the basic principle of the parliamentary procedure,” claiming that the assembly “was hastily, ineptly and badly prepared.”
“It does not provide processes through which the consumers can discuss and work out satisfactory solutions to the greatest number of questions in the least of time. More importantly, on the sudden surge of electricity rate increases of about P1.8789 compared to July 2021. As a result, the consumers had been paying the rate of P12.3724 per kilowatt-hour,” they said.
They insisted that AGMA is illegal and arbitrary as it allegedly failed to meet the requirements, such as having a quorum.
They also stressed that there is no need for the AGMA to ratify the economic provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), particularly on wage increase and other benefits, to make it legal and binding.
“For us, to ratify this CBA, which is a contract between CENECO management and CURE, would be an intrusion to their affairs and therefore illegal. There is no law that requires us to do this prohibited action, otherwise we, the consumers shall be carrying the burden of ratifying or validating all the increases in the salaries and wages granted by the management to the union,” they pointed out.
The AGMA will also violate the standard health protocols and policies set by the Department of Health (DOH) and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, including the local government units (LGU’s) on mass gatherings and social distancing, the group said.
Earlier, the CENECO board said it is proposing to amend the utility firm’s articles of incorporation and by-laws during the AGMA.*