Question & AnswerQ&A (Republic Act No. 10531)
Republic Act No. 10531 is officially known as the 'National Electrification Administration Reform Act of 2013.'
The national policy includes promoting sustainable development in rural areas through rural electrification, empowering and strengthening the National Electrification Administration (NEA) to pursue electrification programs via electric cooperatives, and enabling electric cooperatives to adapt to changes from the restructuring of the electric power industry under Republic Act No. 9136 (EPIRA).
This Act establishes a framework for introducing structural reforms in the National Electrification Administration (NEA) and the electric cooperatives.
An electric cooperative refers to an electric distribution utility organized and registered pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 269, as amended, Republic Act No. 9520, and other related laws.
The NEA is empowered to supervise electric cooperatives, provide financial and technical assistance, restructure ailing cooperatives, exercise step-in rights, formulate institutional and governance standards, grant loans to cooperatives, adjudicate complaints against cooperative officers, and more, aimed at strengthening cooperatives and achieving total electrification.
NEA can issue orders, rules, and regulations; conduct investigations and referenda; impose preventive or disciplinary measures such as suspension or removal of board members or officers; and appoint independent boards of directors in electric cooperatives, all while observing due process.
The NEA can take over the operations of any ailing electric cooperative and may convert it into a stock cooperative or stock corporation. The NEA may appoint or assign third persons to the board and create a management team to restore viability, ensuring due process is observed.
Individuals or their spouses holding public office, who ran for election recently, were convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude, were terminated for cause, have close kinship with current officials within the fourth civil degree, represent juridical persons, or have conflicting financial interests with the cooperative are disqualified from serving.
Directors or officers must be Filipino citizens, graduates of a four-year course, aged between 21 and 70 years at election, of good moral character, members in good standing of the cooperative for the last five years, residents and consumers in the district represented for at least two years, and have attended at least two Annual General Membership Assemblies in the past five years.
A violator is subject to a fine ranging from Fifty thousand pesos to Five hundred thousand pesos, or imprisonment from six months to one year, or both. If a juridical person commits the violation, responsible officials or employees are penalized. Government officials committing violations are also subject to administrative disciplinary action.