Davao del Sur Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Inc. is a Triple A rated (high­est rat­ing) elec­tric coop­er­a­tive in the coun­try. It is a non-stock, non-profit, and service-oriented dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vice provider. The sole dis­trib­u­tor of elec­tric­ity in the entire Davao del Sur and Davao Occi­den­tal cov­er­ing the 337 barangays in the 14 munic­i­pal­i­ties and one City. It pow­ers small and medium busi­ness enter­prises and grow­ing indus­tries, such as com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works and ser­vice facil­i­ties which opened hun­dreds of thou­sand jobs for the peo­ple, thus pro­moted a mod­ern qual­ity of life in this side of the country.

The elec­tri­fi­ca­tion in Davao del Sur dates back as early as 1950 when a fam­ily owned util­ity named Rural Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Cor­po­ra­tion (RECORDA) was granted a fran­chise to oper­ate in the province. It gen­er­ated and dis­trib­uted elec­tric power through sev­eral small gen­er­at­ing located in the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Sta. Cruz, Digos, Bansalan, Padada, and Malalag. Only the town cen­ters then were served, com­pris­ing mostly of res­i­den­tial and small com­mer­cial con­sumers. Elec­tric ser­vice, except in Digos, was only five (5) hours a day from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Owing to poor gen­er­a­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion set-up, power was sold as high as P2.50 per kilowatt-hour, hence only those who could afford to buy can enjoy the con­ve­niences offered by electricity.

Elec­tric coop­er­a­tives in the coun­try­side started to be orga­nized with the pas­sage of Repub­lic Act 6038 on June 2, 1961. They were envi­sioned as answers to the move of the gov­ern­ment to dis­man­tle power util­i­ties charg­ing exor­bi­tant rates, with poor ser­vice and an inabil­ity to serve the whole of its fran­chise area. All these were expe­ri­enced by the peo­ple in Davao del Sur while being served by RECORDA.

One day in 1974, then gov­er­nor of Davao del Sur, Non­ito D. Llanos, Sr., started to make series of trips to Manila to bring up to the author­i­ties of the National Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (NEA) the keen inter­est of the peo­ple to orga­nize an elec­tric coop­er­a­tive. Assist­ing the gov­er­nor in obtain­ing an audi­ence with then NEA Admin­is­tra­tor Gen. Pedro G. Dumol was Atty. Jose T. Ama­cio, Gen­eral Man­ager of Davao del Norte Elec­tric Coop., Inc. (DANECO). This marked the begin­ning of the ful­fill­ment of the people’s seem­ingly impos­si­ble dream, which turned later into a glar­ing real­ity — the con­cep­tion of DASURECO. It was due to these efforts that Gov­er­nor Non­ito D. Llanos, Sr. was named the “Father of Rural Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion in Davao del Sur.”

April 1974, NEA con­ducted a fea­si­bil­ity study in Davao del Sur. Shortly before June 1975, a Provin­cial Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Team, the Dis­trict Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Com­mit­tees, and the interim mem­bers of the Board of Direc­tors and Incor­po­ra­tors were formed to help in the prepa­ra­tion. After a series of coor­di­na­tion among these groups, DASURECO was finally orga­nized as the 63^rd elec­tric coop­er­a­tive in the Philip­pines on June 1, 1975.

As an elec­tric­ity dis­trib­u­tor for more than four decades, DASURECO has remark­ably been doing its share in pro­vid­ing the peo­ple of Davao del Sur and Davao Occi­den­tal the oppor­tu­nity to has­ten their eco­nomic advance­ment. Tes­ti­monies to DASURECO’s excel­lent per­for­mance are the awards and com­men­da­tions it gar­nered over the years.