This relates to the news item in your last issue anent the controversial operations of CASURECO III, Iriga City, with regards to the alleged participation of Cong. Ciriaco Alfelor to place the Acting GM Pedro M. Prestado, Jr. under preventive suspension, pending the resolution of the administrative charges filed against him.

        That is not true, such that the complaint against Prestado had been filed by the CASURECO III Employees Union on one set of charges, and CASURECO III Supervisors’ Union, on the other set of charges. The latter charges had been filed with the same NEA Adcom by Helen P. Sergio, Leopoldo I. Vela and Manuel A. Orobia, likewise employees of the Electric Cooperative, even prior to the filing of the complaint by the employees’ union.

        All the while, media reports gave political hue to the issue at hand, which had to be deemed as pure allegations, unsubstantiated at that, your news correspondent had been leaning on the political tint. Kindly take note that the complainants are all within the organization of CASURECO III-- they are private persons and entities, fighting for the dying coffers of the power cooperative and ultimately benefiting the member-consumers. All of them are/will be fighting for the consumers of the cooperative.

        Sad to note, that since day one of Prestado’s incumbency as GM, he did not prove to be worth his post. Under his watch, the coop accounted and continues to account for a poor performance rating of 59.43%, down the line per NEA’s standard as a code red to borrow the wordings of a recent movie. The coop’s latest audit report will bear this out.

        In fact as of this juncture, the CEU as of three days ago, filed an urgent/ex-parte motion to resolve their pending administrative charges vs. Prestado based on such audit report asking for the dismissal of the respondent GM and further for the immediate and direct supervision by the NEA of the operations of CASURECO III.

MEL PANGA
Iriga City

N.B. If ever you want a copy of the controversial audit report, kindly send me a credible and a wholesome person. We need your help on this pressing concern. Thanks. MPanga