OF WHAT good to residents of Iloilo City is the complaint filed by Panay Electric Co. (PECO) against four persons – former councilors Joshua Alim and Plaridel Nava, Presidential Consultant for Western Visayas Jane Javellana and private citizen Marigold T. Gonzalez – before the Department of Justice?
Does PECO really expect them to cough up P100 million?
The complaint against them for so much damages is allegedly for falsifying 27,000 signatures in a manifesto opposing the renewal of its congressional franchise, allegedly in violation of the Revised Penal Code.
The subliminal message is that, without that petition, the House of Representatives could have renewed PECO’s 25-year franchise instead of awarding it to MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power).
The P100-M is equivalent kuno to the “amount of investment, equipment, and facilities, which PECO had spent in building its business throughout its 95-year existence and service to the entire Iloilo community.”
While it is not for us to discuss the merits of the case, it does not matter whether there were 27,000 persons or only one person who signed the manifesto. PECO should never have played deaf, mute and blind.
At least two consumer groups – the i-Konsumidor and Panay Consumers Alliance – have been taking up the cudgels for the same complainants, citing power outages, hazardous “spaghetti wirings,” outrageous power rates, wrong meter readings, power pilferages, overbillings, negligence in line maintenance, wrong meter readings, delayed bill delivery and unresponsiveness to complaints.
To reiterate, the House-validated complaints were what prompted a number of congressmen to sponsor a bill that would morph into Republic Act 11212, granting the next franchise to MORE Power upon expiration of PECO’s franchise on January 19, 2019.
The print and broadcast media have been raising the company’s unresponsiveness but to no avail. The column Lapsus Calami in this paper, for example, has repeatedly cited the case of Merlyn Bayombong Pomperada of Landheights Subdivision in Villa Arevalo. Coming home from vacation abroad, she found her home “powerless” due to an overdue bill. She paid the bill, only to be told she had to make another bill deposit of P8,600 before her line could be reconnected. Against her will, she made that deposit on May 21, 2019 but to no avail until now.
It was a “double whammy” inflicted on the stressed woman. In the first place, PECO should not have pestered her for a second bill deposit after she had paid her overdue bill. The Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) Magna Carta for Residential Electricity Consumers requires only a one-time bill deposit equivalent to the estimated billing for one month to guarantee payment of bills.
Since Pomperada’s case is not an isolated one, we can imagine the millions of pesos that PECO must have illegally collected from gullible customers.
During a forum hosted by the Iloilo Economic Development Foundation Inc. (ILED) at Hotel Del Rio, Velma Lao of the Local Economic and Investment Promotion Officer (LEIPO) lamented that while PECO had been given enough time to improve its business efficiency, it had not done so.
Halley Alcarde, assistant vice president of Gaisano Capital, supported Lao’s stand and the right of the government to intervene in behalf of the people.
While it looks ironic that the ERC has issued PECO a new certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) at a time when MORE Power should have already taken over, in reality it is just a temporary exigency pending resolution of the expropriation suit that MORE Power has filed against PECO.
Be patient; it pays. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
