THE Supreme Court (SC) invalidated a regulation requiring officers and directors of electric cooperatives to resign automatically upon filing their certificates of candidacy (CoCs) for public office.
The high court’s Third Division, in a ruling penned by Justice Japar B. Dimaampao, nullified Section 2 of the National Electrification Administration’s (NEA) Memorandum No. 2012-2016.
The provision had mandated that officers be deemed resigned upon filing their candidacy for local or national elections, which the court found to be contradictory of the Omnibus Election Code and the NEA Charter.
According to the ruling, automatic resignation provisions under the Omnibus Election Code apply exclusively to individuals holding public appointive positions, such as government-owned or controlled corporation (GOCC) officials and members of the military.
The Court said that electric cooperatives are privately owned entities that deliver public services as electricity distributors.
Despite being regulated by the NEA, the cooperatives are not considered government agencies or GOCCs, as they are owned and managed by member-consumers rather than the government.
The NEA Charter, the Court clarified, disqualifies cooperative officers only if they win and assume elective government posts.
The case arose after two petitioners, who were then members of the Board of Directors of Camarines Sur Electric Cooperative II, challenged the rule.
Lower courts, including the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals, sided with the petitioners before the case reached the Supreme Court. — Chloe Mari A. Hufana
