1Mindanao’s own take on Petilla’s resignation

We cannot agree more with the editorial “Petilla’s record” (Opinion, 5/5/15). Indeed, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla leaves with the power supply adequate and the oil firms keeping their pump-prices depressed.

We, in the Bukidnon Transport Multi-Purpose Cooperative, a member of 1Mindanao Energy Cooperative, a recently organized federation of 8,000 Mindanao-based cooperatives with a combined membership of three million strong, are saddened by his most unexpected resignation.

His departure will leave a feeling of great loss not only at the Department of Energy but even more among the cooperatives in

Mindanao and in the country’s cooperative movement.

Secretary Petilla embodies the spirit that makes for a true public servant whose primordial concern is to serve the public interest the best he could, unmindful of the usual working hours. We are a witness to his remarkable dedication and commitment to public service.

We can attest to the standards of public service he, as energy czar, imposed upon himself to ensure reliable, quality and secure supply of electricity. We have seen him seize every opportunity he could in serving electricity consumers and, in every instance, he conducted himself with transparency and a great sense of accountability.

This quality he showed when he accepted our invitation for him to be the main guest speaker at the First Regional Power Summit that was held in Cagayan de Oro City on Oct. 30, 2014, even when he was scheduled to leave for Europe that day.

In that gathering, the idea that gave life to 1Mindanao Energy Cooperative began to take shape, with the cooperatives looking into making a serious bid for the privatization-bound Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex, not as a capitalist primarily representing a financial interest, but as consumer-owners who continue to shoulder all the cost of electricity, including the unjust system loss charge.

Secretary Petilla continued to show his sincere and unflinching support for the cooperatives’ desire to empower the consumers of

Mindanao through 1Mindanao by joining the succeeding regional cooperative power summits, where the cooperative leaders agreed to organize a coalition representing not only the interest of the current members of our respective cooperatives but also the interest of all electricity consumers with electric meters to their names; and to invest their combined financial resources in the cause of advancing consumer empowerment with the end in view of alleviating poverty in Mindanao.

Whatever was Secretary Petilla’s reason for his resignation, he can rest assured that he has the respect and trust of the genuine people’s cooperatives in Mindanao, who see in him a sincere, upright, trustworthy and true public servant.

—GLICERIO TAN, chair,

Bukidnon Transport

Multi-Purpose Cooperative