The National Electrification Administration (NEA) has been flagged for violating its own Charter by issuing policies that allegedly overstepped the powers of the electric cooperatives (ECs) on the appointment of their own general managers (GMs).

Senate Committee on Energy Chairman Sherwin T. Gatchalian primarily prodded Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi to direct NEA to scrap its two memoranda that had breached jurisdiction when it comes to the selection and designation of GMs for power cooperatives.

In the lawmaker’s view, the NEA Memorandum No. 2021-55 and Memorandum No. 2021-56 issued last December by Acting Administrator Emmanuel Juaneza “violated the law as it went beyond its (NEA’s) supervisory powers.”

He is referring to Presidential Decree (PD) 269 or the NEA Charter, as amended by Republic Act 10531, which defines the role as well as the boundaries of supervision that the government-run electrification agency must exercise over the ECs.

“By vesting NEA the power to appoint a general manager of an electric cooperative, NEA Memorandum No. 2021-55 and Memorandum No. 2021-56 violate Presidential Decree (PD) 269 or the National Electrification Administration Decree,” Gatchalian stressed.

It is within that precept that the solon has been nudging Cusi to reproach NEA’s move, as the energy chief is the key official supervising the electrification agency’s affairs and he also backed the designation of Juaneza as NEA administrator.

Gatchalian primarily stated that “Memorandum No. 2021-55 changed the rules on the selection, hiring, termination of service/suspension of general managers of electric cooperatives contained in NEA Memorandum No. 2017-035.”

That policy modification, he said, unduly transferred the power to appoint GMs to the NEA Board of Administrators which was previously reserved to the Board of Directors (BOD) of the electric cooperatives.

Further, Memorandum No. 2021-56, was a policy guidelines’ tweak on carrying out evaluation of qualifications as well as the warranted interview to GM-applicants for the ECs.

Gatchalian opined that under Section 4 of PD 269, “NEA has merely the power to supervise the management and operations of all ECs and therefore, NEA is not allowed under the law to replace the judgment of ECs with their own discretion in appointing GMs.”

He pointed out that in the law’s prescriptions, “the EC enjoys the power to determine in its by-laws the manner of elections and filling of vacancies of its officers.”

The lawmaker similarly conveyed that a new Section 26-B was introduced under RA 10531; and that had actually “limited NEA’s role to merely review the qualifications and disqualifications of individuals appointed or elected to electric cooperatives.”