A dismal number of member-consumers of the Benguet Electric Cooperative participated in the exercise to select their district representatives in the distribution utility’s highest policy-making body.
Of the more than 144,000 member-consumers of Beneco, 4,206 cast their votes during the elections for the board of directors (BOD) on April 20.
The elections were held for districts two and five in Baguio and districts 7, 8, and 10 in Benguet.
In Baguio, 546 member-consumers voted with Josephine Aclayan and Claudio Calugan earning their sets for district 2 and district 5, respectively. Aclayan was a lone candidate while Calugan won against Pablo Gomuad. Baguio has 63,816 member-consumers.
In Benguet, 3,660 participated in the elections that had Joel Cervantes winning over Tyrone Diaz to represent district 7, which covers La Trinidad, in the Beneco BOD.
District 8; which covers Itogon, Bokod, and Kabayan; will be represented by Fernando Abello, the lone candidate.
Wilfredo Diano will sit as the representative of district 10 covering Atok, Tublay, Kapangan, and Kibungan. He won against Edward Antonio. Benguet has 80,485 member-consumers.
The election for district 6, in Baguio is expected to join the second round of elections in September. It was among the districts set in the recent election but no candidate qualified.
Beneco Institutional Services Department Manager Delmar Cariño said the short period for campaign as provided in the rules of National Electrification Administration was among the reasons of the low turnout of voters.
For districts with lone candidates, only one precinct was opened for the polls and there were those who were not allowed to cast their ballots because they do not own the accounts or they are not members.
Cariño said the newly elected members will join the first monthly BOD meeting in May and will join the interim board until the second batch regular BOD are elected in September. – Jane B. Cadalig
