By Herbert Vego
IN line with my health regimen, I walk around a mall for at least 30 minutes a day, usually before eating lunch in one of the restaurants thereat. But most of my favorite eateries have closed, obviously because of restrictions brought about by the government-imposed modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ).
With that in mind, we asked MORE Power President Roel Z. Castro – who was our guest on the program “Tribuna sang Banwa” on Aksyon Radyo last Sunday – to shed light on the effect of business closures to his company as the power distribution utility in Iloilo City.
“We are hard-hit,” he candidly admitted. “Many of our deactivated commercial customers have asked to be temporarily disconnected.”
Despite that handicap, however, MORE Power has been implementing a “no disconnection” policy for one month and a half already. This means that the power supply of households with overdue accounts would not be terminated as long as the city is under MECQ status.
Unfortunately, there are also customers who default payment on the false excuse of not having received their bills.
Of course, non-disconnection is disadvantageous to the distribution utility which does not enjoy a similar moratorium on remittances to its power suppliers.
“Suspension of disconnection does not mean suspension of payment,” Castro clarified. “It is aimed at helping the financially strained cope with protocol restrictions during the pandemic. And so we appeal to the better-off to pay their bills promptly.”
We asked President Castro to confirm an informant’s allegation that while power pilferage had diminished due to the tendency of concerned citizens to report illegally-connected neighbors, no less than some barangay captains and councilmen still steal electricity on the pretext of “public service”.
If true, that report is a stain on the reputation of Irene Ong, the president of Iloilo City’s Liga ng mga Barangay and an ex-officio city councilor.
“We verified that to be true,” Castro confirmed, adding that the barangays owe MORE Power millions of pesos for power consumed by barangay halls, health centers and other barangay-run edifices. “I intend to take up the matter with Mayor Jerry Treñas.”
Ironically, the barangay officials are supposed to obey Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Bernardo Florece Jr., who asked them in January this year to assist the distribution utilities in inspecting electric facilities and in identifying power thieves.
On the other hand, the MORE Power management knows the barangay officials and barangay tanods who anxiously report incidents of pilferage that could cause brownouts.
Castro admitted though that some power outages are “necessary” to enable linemen to upgrade power lines in accordance with the utility’s modernization plan.
He cited the installation of “circuit reclosers” that automatically shut off electric power in a service area when trouble occurs, thus enabling linemen to revive power within minutes.
“We are proceeding as planned,” he said, referring to their three-year modernization program, for which the company is prepared to spend P1.9 billion. This would entail installation of new sub-stations, replacement of old poles, crossbars, wires, transformers and electric meters, among others.
The program, which is also aimed at reducing power cost, saw the installation of a “switching station” at barangay Banuyao, La Paz. As a result, the company now directly connects with the transmission facilities of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP); and directly purchases 100 percent of its needed power supply from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), the online venue for competitive trading of electricity as a commodity.
Moreover, the average rate for residential consumers has gone down from P10.5212 to P10.2777 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) despite the inflation.
More, more, more cut-price forthcoming?
