Davao del Sur Electric Cooperative

History of DASURECO

Get to know DASURECO by reading our History.

1950s –Rural Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Cor­po­ra­tion (RECORDA) – a fam­ily owned util­ity was granted a fran­chise to oper­ate in the province where only the town cen­ters were served.

1961, June 2 — ···R.A. 6038 was passed which called for the orga­ni­za­tion of elec­tric coop­er­a­tives (ECs)

1969 — ···The National Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (NEA) – the mother orga­ni­za­tion of ECs was cre­ated and 2 pilot projects: MORESCO (Mis­amis Or. Elec­tric Coop) and VRESCO ·(Vic­to­rias Rural· Elec­tric Ser­vice Coop) were launched

1971 — ···36 more ECs were estab­lished in var­i­ous parts of the country

1974 -· Local offi­cials, headed by then Gov. Non­ito D. Llanos, Sr. – the Father of Rural Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion in Davao del Sur, let NEA know about the keen inter­est of the peo­ple of Davao del Sur to orga­nize an elec­tric coop. He was assisted by Atty. Jose T. Ama­cio, Gen­eral Man­ager of Davao del Norte Elec­tric Coop., Inc. (DANECO) in obtain­ing an audi­ence with then NEA Admin­is­tra­tor Gen. Pedro G. Dumol.

Before June 1975 — a Provin­cial Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Team (PECT) was formed to coor­di­nate with NEA rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the prepa­ra­tion of loan fea­si­bil­ity and engi­neer­ing stud­ies. Atty. Isidro Ordaneza of Padada was Chair­man and Dr. Vicente Florida, Jr., Romualdo Crispino, Alfonso Gomez, Bernardo Garvida, Henry Lei and Engr. Joel E. Aba­jero were mem­bers. The Dis­trict Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Com­mit­tee (DEC) was also orga­nized in the dif­fer­ent munic­i­pal­i­ties. The chair­men in the dif­fer­ent dis­tricts com­posed the interim mem­bers of the board of direc­tors and incor­po­ra­tors. They were Dom­i­nador A. Bendigo, Sr. – Sta. Cruz; Patri­cio R. Atillo – Digos; Ramon L. Delos Cien­tos, Sr. – Bansalan; Fed­erico S. Dul­du­lao – Matanao; Jose I. Belis­ario – Magsaysay; Leonardo M. Cabaobao – Hagonoy; James J. Binoya – Padada; Leopoldo N. Cruz, Sr. – Kiblawan; Jovito A. Mar­quez – Sulop; Sabino P. Zan­tua – Malalag; and Juan L. Zapanta – Sta. Maria.

1975, June 1 — DASURECO was for­mally orga­nized as the 63rd elec­tric coop­er­a­tive with the sign­ing of the Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion and reg­is­tra­tion with NEA. Wit­nesses to the sign­ing of the arti­cles of incor­po­ra­tion were Gov­er­nor Non­ito D. Llanos, Sr. and Romualdo Crispino. NEA was rep­re­sented by then Deputy Admin­is­tra­tor for Coop Devel­op­ment Engr. Leonardo Caloso. On the same day, the interim offi­cers of the board were elected with Patri­cio R. Atillo as Pres­i­dent; James K. Binoya as Vice Pres­i­dent; Leonardo M. Cabaobao as Sec­re­tary; Dom­i­nador A. Bendigo, Sr. as Trea­surer; and Ramon L. Delos Cien­tos, Sr., Fed­erico S. Dul­du­lao, Jose I. Belis­ario, Leopoldo N. Cruz, Sr. Jovito A. Mar­quez, Sabino P. Zan­tua and Juan L. Zapanta as mem­bers. An orga­ni­za­tional meet­ing then fol­lowed. Oth­ers attend­ing were Gov­er­nor Llanos, Gil B. Med­ina, Lino M. Culalic, Rey­naldo V. Abundo — Coop Devel­op­ment Offi­cers of NEA; Nica­sio L. Baloyo — Chief, Fea­si­bil­ity Study Divi­sion, NEA; Jere­mias R. Madrid — Coop Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer, NEA; Non­ito E. Llanos, Jr. — Vice Mayor of Digos; Atty. Mar­gar­ito Halasan — Asst. Provin­cial Audi­tor of Davao del Sur; and Engr. Joel E. Aba­jero, then Provin­cial Devel­op­ment Offi­cer of Davao del Sur, who later became the first reg­u­lar Gen­eral Man­ager of DASURECO.

1975, July 13 -···the first loan sign­ing was held at the Ramon Magsaysay Audi­to­rium in Digos. Pres­i­dent Atillo rep­re­sented DASURECO while NEA Deputy Admin­is­tra­tor for Coop­er­a­tive Devel­op­ment, Engr. Leonardo G. Coloso, rep­re­sented NEA. Instru­men­tal wit­nesses to the loan con­tract agree­ment were Gov­er­nor Non­ito D. Llanos, Sr. and Mayor of Digos Jesus A. Ralota. The first loan was P16, 554,000.00, bear­ing an inter­est of 3% per annum payable in 30 years. The amount was used to finance the con­struc­tion of Phase I elec­tri­fi­ca­tion project com­posed of the eleven (11) munic­i­pal­i­ties of the cov­er­age area.

1975, Novem­ber 12 –· the oper­a­tion of RECORDA was taken over by DASURECO with nine (9) self-generating units (925KW) as the interim source of power. Ini­tially, there were only 2,076 con­sumers. Since DASURECO was still a neo­phyte, it has to seek assis­tance and guid­ance from NEA. Danilo P. Dela Cruz — NEA Senior Audi­tor and Her­nando A. Esguerra — NEA Senior Ana­lyst, were des­ig­nated as Act­ing Gen­eral Man­ager and Act­ing Office Man­ager, respec­tively, to share their exper­tise and know-how in han­dling elec­tric coops operations.

1976, April 21, – the first pole was erected and DASURECO was awarded the con­tract to Leitz-Zulueta Cap­i­tal, Inc. for the con­tract price of P711, 206.40 for labor only.

1976, May –the Archi­tec­tural and Engi­neer­ing Agree­ment between DASURECO and Adrian Wil­son Inter­na­tional Asso­ciates, Inc. (AWIA) was signed to address the need for engi­neer­ing con­sul­tant to han­dle the archi­tec­tural and engi­neer­ing work. The engi­neer­ing firm under­took the map­ping, load sur­vey, stak­ing prepa­ra­tion of plans, esti­mates of mate­ri­als, prepa­ra­tion of bid doc­u­ments and super­vi­sion of the project dur­ing the con­struc­tion stage.

1977, Jan­u­ary 19 -· the take-over of Matanao Munic­i­pal System

1977, Feb­ru­ary 22 — Ground-breaking of the 4.78-hectare head­quar­ter site acquired by DASURECO at only P1.00 per square meter or P47, 800.00. DASURECO used to occupy a small space at the Digos Munic­i­pal Build­ing as its tem­po­rary office and also the Crispino Build­ing near the pub­lic mar­ket later. Most of RECORDA’s employ­ees com­posed the orig­i­nal work force of DASURECO.

1977, March 1 — the con­struc­tion of the per­ma­nent coop head­quar­ters facil­i­ties started. The con­trac­tor, ··Vicente P. Man­cao Con­struc­tion built the admin­is­tra­tive build­ing, shop, ware­house and GM’s res­i­dence with a total con­tract price of P1.555 M.

1977, Sep­tem­ber — DASURECO entered into a for­mal con­tract with DLPC for the pur­chase of power using the con­structed 69KV trans­mis­sion lines of NPC. This is because the taken-over gen­er­at­ing units have no full gen­er­at­ing capac­ity to sup­ply power for the coop’s back­bone sys­tem due to its dete­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion. The tar­get of the National Power Cor­po­ra­tion (NPC) to com­plete its 138KV trans­mis­sion lines from Maria Cristina, Ili­gan City had long been delayed, hence the DASURECO was com­pelled to look for said interim power source.

1977, Sep­tem­ber 14 — the coop ener­gized the first seven (7) munic­i­pal­i­ties of the eleven (11) of its area cov­er­age, namely: Digos, Bansalan, Matanao, Magsaysay, Padada, Sulop and Malalag.

1978 — DASURECO ener­gized the Munic­i­pal­ity of Hagonoy, the 8th Munic­i­pal­ity energized.

1978, Feb­ru­ary 11 — The first Annual Gen­eral Mem­ber­ship Meet­ing was held. On the same day, the coop ener­gized Sta. Cruz, the 9th munic­i­pal­ity ener­gized. The 10th munic­i­pal­ity ener­gized by DASURECO was Kiblawan. The coop’s cov­er­age area expanded from eleven (11) to thir­teen (13) munic­i­pal­i­ties to include the remain­ing two (2) munic­i­pal­i­ties of Malita and Jose Abad San­tos, which actu­ally com­prise the entire province.

1978, March 24 — Sta. Maria was ener­gized, bring­ing now to eleven (11) the total munic­i­pal­i­ties ener­gized by DASURECO. The coop was able to con­struct and ener­gized the Phase 1 project of the back­bone sys­tem within a period of one (1) year and eleven (11) months.

1978, Sep­tem­ber 13 — the National Elec­tric Com­mis­sion granted DASURECO with Cer­tifi­cate No. 016 as sole elec­tric fran­chise to oper­ate light and power ser­vice in Davao del Sur for the period of fifty (50) years.

1978 — AGM Danilo P. Dela Cruz was des­ig­nated by NEA as the Act­ing Gen­eral Man­ager of North Cota­bato Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, Inc. (COTELCO) on a con­cur­rent basis. This marked the begin­ning of inter-coop exchange of tech­nolo­gies and skills.

1979, Jan­u­ary 31– NEA recalled AGM Dela Cruz. Ms. Betty J. Gar­cia, Staff Assis­tant then, was des­ig­nated Officer-In-Charge.

1979, Sep­tem­ber 16 — the Board appointed Engr. Joel E. Aba­jero as reg­u­lar manager.

1980, Decem­ber 17 — DASURECO was granted a sec­ond loan for the Phase II of the project which cov­ered the Munic­i­pal­i­ties of Malita, Jose Abad San­tos, Don Marcelino and Sarangani Island. The third loan for expan­sion of lat­eral lines in the amount of P8M was signed in August 1983.

1982 — DASURECO was cat­e­go­rized as A Coop

1985 -··· DASURECO was named the Best EC in Min­danao & in the Philippines

1986, July — Engr. Joel E. Aba­jero, Gen­eral Man­ager of DASURECO resigned from his post. Engi­neers Jesus P. Dela Vic­to­ria and Alex G. Gar­cia, Man­ager for Engi­neer­ing and Chief, Oper­a­tions and Main­te­nance Depart­ment, respec­tively, were des­ig­nated as Officer-In-Charge on an alter­nate basis.

1987, Sep­tem­ber 17 — Engr. Jesus P. Dela Vic­to­ria was appointed by the Board and con­curred by NEA as the sec­ond reg­u­lar man­ager of DASURECO.

1988, Decem­ber — DASURECO was granted the fourth loan amount­ing to P8.399 M.

1990 — The fifth and sixth loans total­ing to P11.44M from USAID.

1991, Feb­ru­ary 18 — Another loan amount­ing to P123 M was signed on to finance for 1991 to 1995 elec­tri­fi­ca­tion projects.

1997, August 28 — DASURECO was ele­vated to HALL OF FAME