Power and consumers
General Santos Groups Rally Over SOCOTECO II Deal With Ignite Power
September 28, 2026 · Joshua S Bariñan
A prayer gathering in General Santos City on August 29 turned the spotlight on a plan by the area's electric cooperative to hand day to day control to a private partner. Church, university, and consumer groups asked for an independent audit and a delay to the member vote on the deal between South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative and Ignite Power. The vote is set over four weekends in September and will decide who runs power distribution for hundreds of thousands of households.
The dispute asks whether outside capital can modernize the local grid without weakening the control held by cooperative members.
What the rally was about
The Social Action Center of the Diocese of Marbel led a prayer and candle lighting event at Plaza Heneral Santos on the evening of August 29. It drew students from Notre Dame of Dadiangas University, parish groups, youth organizations, and consumer advocates. Organizers had projected a crowd of 3,000 to 7,000, while the city police put the turnout at about 2,000 and described the event as peaceful.
The groups did not oppose modernizing the power network outright. Their appeal, circulated online days earlier, asked for transparency, an independent review of the cooperative's finances and operations, and a delay in the member vote so that consumers could study the terms.
The deal on the table
SOCOTECO II serves member consumers across General Santos, parts of Sarangani, and South Cotabato. Its management has proposed a conditional joint venture with Ignite Power, a company backed by the Razon led Primelectric and the business group of Manny Pacquiao. The plan promises a five year modernization program aimed at cutting system losses and replacing an aging network the cooperative says has run up more than 2 billion pesos in losses.
Cooperative president Elenito Senit said the member vote would run over four weekends to give qualified members time to take part, and that the cooperative had coordinated with the National Electrification Administration on the guidelines. The plebiscite is scheduled for the weekends of September 5, September 12, September 19, and September 26.
Why some members object
Opponents focus on control. Under the proposed structure, the private partner would hold the larger share of the venture while the members keep a minority stake, and critics warn that later capital calls could shrink the members' portion further and reduce their seats on the board. For a cooperative that is owned by its consumers, they argue, that would move real decisions out of members' hands.
The dispute predates the rally. Around 10,000 member consumers filed complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman in July against cooperative and electrification agency officials, questioning whether SOCOTECO II was even eligible for a joint venture given an earlier downgrade of its performance rating. In Congress, a resolution was filed seeking a House energy committee inquiry into the deal.
What happens next
The September plebiscite is the decision point. If members approve, the cooperative can move ahead with Ignite Power under the modernization plan. If they reject it or the vote is delayed, the cooperative stays under its current setup while regulators weigh the pending complaints.
Both sides frame the outcome as a test of who controls a basic service in a growing part of southern Mindanao. Supporters see a chance to fix an unreliable grid. Critics see a risk of trading member ownership for a private operator's promises.
Update: how the plebiscite actually ran
The vote did not follow the four weekend plan. Member consumer Eugene Mangilaya sued on September 3 to void the plebiscite and its guidelines, and executive judge Allan Edwin Boncavil issued a 72 hour restraining order the next day. A pairing judge extended it to September 24. On September 11, judge Vicente Andiano of Regional Trial Court Branch 62 in Polomolok lifted the order and denied a preliminary injunction, ruling that the claims of hidden board dealings and irreparable harm were speculative because the joint venture agreement was still conditional. He noted that members could still move to annul the result if the voting itself proved irregular.
The cooperative then dropped the September 12 and 13 round, citing short preparation time. Voting ran on September 5 and 6, September 19 and 20, and September 26 and 27, covering an estimated 200,000 member consumer owners. As of September 28 the cooperative had not released a tally, so the deal remains unapproved and the modernization plan cannot proceed until members sign off.
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