ILOILO City – Amid the enhanced community quarantine order here, MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) has cut off the power at Panay Electric Co.’s (PECO) main office and threatened to cut off power, too, in the homes of PECO’s owners, the Cacho family.
In a letter to PECO and the Cacho family, MORE Power – which took over PECO power distribution assets – stated that the main office and households used “unmetered” electricity. It sked the Cachos to apply for a MORE Power electric meter or face disconnection.
“Their claim that we are using unmetered electricity is not true. We are still using PECO’s meters since PECO is still nominating power for Iloilo,” said PECO head of Public Engagement and Government Affairs Marcelo Cacho.
“They just want to phase out our meters prematurely despite the fact that the case concerning the constitutionality of this takeover is still pending in the Supreme Court,” Cacho added.
For her part, PECO legal counsel Atty. Estrella Elamparo said, “This is a petty and ill-advised tactic. They are simply preempting the Supreme Court.”
Several Cacho family members received MORE Power’s demand for re-application, including 81-year-old Maria Lourdes Cacho who currently has a broken arm and lives alone.
Despite the stern warning of health authorities that seniors are more susceptible to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) than others, she may be left with no choice but leave the safety of her home in violation of the guidelines set for the lockdown.
Jose Maria Cacho, Marcelo’s 55-year-old uncle, is a blind person with disability (PWD). His wife, Diana, is a doctor who is currently a person under monitoring (PUM) for COVID-19.
“This is harassment of the highest order. They want my injured 81-year-old grandmother to leave her home during the lockdown, even when she’s one of the most at risk,” said Marcelo.
“We all just want to focus on making sure everyone is safe, and then they threaten us with cutting power that we at PECO paid for,” he added.
MORE Power’s letter was also sent to PECO’s main office on Saturday. The same day, MORE Power disconnected the main office building from PECO’s own purchased power by cutting the line from the substation.
“MORE Power didn’t follow the rules of the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) which requires them to give a two-day notice before disconnection, and no disconnections on weekends,” Elamparo noted, stressing that following the rules, the disconnection should have been done on Tuesday, the second working day after the letter was served.
According to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) website, PECO is still the only power distribution company in Iloilo registered with the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). MORE’s application is still pending.
This means that PECO is still the only entity that is officially designated to purchase power for Iloilo City, said Elamparo. Without PECO’s nomination of power, there will be no electricity for MORE Power to distribute, she stressed.
“With PECO still being the rightful operator of the distribution facilities, as well as the entity that to this day purchases the power for distribution to the entire City of Iloilo, it is MORE Powr that is stealing electricity from PECO in violation of Sections 2 and 3 of Republic Act 7832,” Elamparo said.
ERC and the Department of Energy DOE released a call for solidarity last week, asking distribution utilities across the nation to defer consumer payments and put a hold on all disputes until the country’s health situation stabilizes.
Judge Emerald Contreras of the Iloilo Regional Trial Court Branch 23 also ordered MORE Power to return operations of the power distribution facilities to PECO on March 6.
MORE Power claims it has a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN), however ERC hearing officer, Atty. Ma. Corazon Gines confirmed in a March 11 hearing that MORE had only been granted a Provisional Authority.
PECO is currently contesting the issue but has deferred to the ERC’s directive that all disputes will be on hold during the lockdown./PN
