BANGUED, Abra: The “dark side” of local politics shadowed Abra province’s power “black-out” for two days.

This was according to Abra Electric Cooperative (Abreco) general manager Loreto Seares Jr. who said that the power outage has political underpinning “as the governor wants me out at the expense of the 47,000 member-consumers.”

With private firm Aboitiz Power Renewables Inc. cutting off its supply on Monday over an unpaid P4.9 million electricity fee—and restoring power at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, after the cooperative paid its dues, Seares Jr. lamented that Abreco’s woe was “used as leverage for a political agenda.”

Apparently, Abreco was asking Aboitiz for more time to pay its current bill—a 2two to five days grace period—but Abra was placed in total darkness.

Sensing local politics at play, Seares Jr. stressed: “Why put the people of Abra as pawns in politics” and aired suspicions that Gov. Eustaquio Bersamin of Abra has a lackey to replace him ahead of the 2013 polls.

Instead of helping Abrenios, a political agenda had its way “even asked Aboitiz to cut off instead of helping us to ask the private firm to wait for more days until collections are at hand for the payment,” Seares Jr. said.

Just as power went off on Monday, Abreco board president David Guzman Jr. received a phone call from the camp of Bersamin insinuating that the provincial government could have saved the scenario “with Seares Jr. out from the cooperative.”

The new Philippine Cooperative Code bans political intervention into the internal affairs of cooperatives.

“I did not expect that the father of the province himself would sacrifice Abrenios for his political agenda,” Seares Jr. pointed out. “It runs counter to the legacy of good governance,” the Abreco manager added.

Bersamin though denies having any hand with the power cut-off. “The governor has no executive power over a cooperative,” he explained as he lashed out at accusations of meddling as simply not true.

During the “black-out,” very reliable sources said that the governor was even scratching his head about the situation apparently “because his fighting cocks in Peñarubia town could not stand the heat without air-conditioning units.”

Aboitiz signed an agreement with Abreco on December 26, 2011, to provide electricity to all 27 municipalities in Abra, covering 295 barangays out of 303 barangays.