• CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO

A covenant signing was held by the officers of the Alliance of Concerned Consumers in Electricity and Social Services (ACCESS) after its launching and induction of officers for 2024-2025 in Bacolod City yesterday.
ACCESS is headed by its president Wennie Sancho and its officers are Roy Cordova – executive vice president, Dionisio Dela Cruz – corporate secretary, Pastor James Jaruda – treasurer, Rev. Jupeter Arela – project implementation officer. Members of the Board of Directors are Eduardo Gulmatico, Ramon Cruz Gumban, Rolly Torre, Rics Villanueva, Diego Malacad, Samson Soriano, and Esther Sancho.
The unification of ACCESS is a united effort of consumer action groups, multi-sectoral organizations, and individual consumer advocates, whose common interest is the strengthening and upholding the rights and responsibilities of the Filipino consumers, particularly the poor and marginalized.
It is committed to address the basic problems of the consumers, namely food security and safety, basic services, and public utilities, including, but not limited to water supply services, power distribution utilities (DU), and transportation. Their main advocacy is consumer protection and empowerment.
Sancho said ACCESS is a unification of multi-sectoral groups to solidify and strengthen their force in order to promote consumer protection and education. And above all, to make the consumers aware that they have the voice to complain and the right to assert in order to advance their welfare.
“An educated consumer is an empowered consumer”, he added.*