LA TRINIDAD, Benguet, Philippines — Amidst the peculiar situation in this highland province, the management of the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) here was able to already energize 1,343 sitios in the 13 municipalities over the past three decades.

Engr. Melchor Licoben, manager of BENECO’s engineering department said the rural electric cooperative was able to achieve 100 percent energization of the province’s 144 barangays but it was only able to bring electricity to 80 percent of the total 1,679 sitios which comprise the whole province, one of its franchise areas.

According to him, it is difficult to bring power to all the sitios in the province because of their distance from the nearest sitio with available distribution lines, thus, the need for the electric cooperative to continuously source out resources from either government agencies and institutions or private companies to help energize the remaining unenergized sitios.

Based on initial estimates, BENECO needs at least P300 million in order to fully energize the sitios without electricity at present but there is no timetable yet on when the target will be accomplished considering that there is a paid growth in population in all parts of the province.

Aside from sourcing out resources to realize the national government’s rural electrification program, Licoben explained funds for its energization program are also sourced out from the capital expenditure program of the cooperative which is duly approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).