By Limuel S. Celebria
MORE POWER and Electric Company (MORE) President Ruel Castro is redefining the meaning of Chief Executive Officer. Not content with dealing with corporate concerns and overseeing company operations from the comfortable confines of an air-conditioned office, Mr. Castro has gone out of his way to personally direct MORE activities on the ground.
I would like to think there is no MORE Power employee who is more invested in the company than Mr. Castro. How many times have we seen a company president personally supervising workers replacing dilapidated poles and cross-arms or straightening out low hanging and tangled electrical wirings?
Late last month I had a brief conversation over breakfast with Mr. Castro and was surprised to find out that he spent Christmas here. Rather than go home to Manila and be with family, he instead asked his wife to travel to Iloilo while he continued with his work. There’s so much work to be done, he said.
Aside from repairing and upgrading a power distribution system that the former power distributor left to rot, MORE is engaged in modernizing the system in anticipation of increasing demand for power. One such upgrade is the installation of Automatic Circuit Reclosers (ACRs): a type of switchgear used in overhead electricity distribution networks to detect and interrupt momentary faults. ACRs, which cost about PHP2-million per unit, are designed to reduce power interruption caused by transient faults such as lightning strikes, surges, or foreign objects (e.g., birds, geckos, deliberately thrown wires) coming into contact with the exposed distribution lines. A majority of outages can be solved with this simple close operation.
In the Molo and Mandurriao districts where there are a lot of illegal connections, Castro said some outages are deliberately caused by these illegalistas in order to gain a window of opportunity for them to safely connect their wire taps. The reclosers automatically restore power to the affected area, shutting the door on these power thieves. This year, MORE is acquiring several more ACRs to be installed in – yes – Molo and Mandurriao.
Speaking of illegal connections, Castro is happy to report that MORE’s campaign against an estimated 30,000 illegal connections in the city is succeeding. He reports that over 14,000 have applied for metered connections of which about 10,000 have already been activated. Meanwhile around 70 legal cases have been filed against those engaged in power theft including a number of barangay officials and “people of influence.”
I’d like to think that Pres. Castro is not just invested in the future of his company; he is more invested in the future of Iloilo. He may, in fact, be seriously thinking of growing roots and retiring here.
Kgd. Estante’s Quest for Perfection
In a radio interview shortly after the Iloilo City Council’s special session on the final day of the year 2020, Councilor Ely Armada Estante, Jr. proudly pointed out that he has achieved yet another perfect attendance record in the City Council. This means that, despite the pandemic and other difficulties, Kgd. Estante did not go on sick leave, vacation leave, official leave or any other type of leave for that matter.
The city council holds at least four regular sessions in a month, as required under the Local Government Code. This does not include special sessions which are held whenever there are urgent matters needing the immediate passage of a resolution or ordinance by the city council, especially in matters needing fiscal appropriations. For example, last December, the city council held three special sessions to realign funds for the bonuses of city hall employees. This January 2021, the first session of the City Council (held last January 5) was a special session requested by the City Mayor who is asking for authority to enter into a confidentiality agreement with a pharmaceutical firm relative to the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. The first regular session of the city council will be on January 7, 2021.
Again, this means that Kgd. Estante was physically present in all sessions – or electronically, some might say digitally, present in some sessions that were held via Zoom when a number of city officials and employees got infected by the COVID-19 bug.
Attendance to sessions has been a fixation for Kgd. Estante ever since he first became city councilor in 2004. Now serving his 5th term, Estante was “absent” from city council sessions only when he was on official travel elsewhere in the country or abroad.
Lest some wags would think otherwise, let me be quick to point out that Estante is not only present physically but also mentally, meaning he actively participates in the debates and deliberations, especially on crucial issues affecting the welfare of disadvantaged constituents.
For the record, Estante has passed this year five (5) ordinances the most notable of which is the ordinance requiring and regulating the use of face shield and face mask, the tipping fee ordinance regulating the dumping of garbage in Calajunan, an amendment to the environment ordinance increasines fines on spitting in public, the ban on the use of refilled Butane canisters (with principal author, Kgd. Lyndon Acap).
Kgd. Estante has also delivered privilege speeches and passed resolutions (Mueller-Britanico twin murder and the Bo. Obrero Oil Spill), and conducted public hearings and committee meetings as Chairman of the City Council Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Suffice to say, Kgd. Estante is doing his job as a city councilor and public servant above and beyond what is expected by the public.
