LET’S GIVE politics and all that nonsense a rest and talk about something else that affects our everyday life.
Who would have thought that something originally conceived as a derogatory slur was turned around to represent something positive, an image or a symbol of commitment to responsibilities as a good corporate citizen.
And what are we talking about? At the height of the power struggle (pun intended) and the inevitable changing of the guards between erstwhile power provider of “I Am Iloilo City”, the now defunct Panay Electric Co., and the new-kid-on-the block MORE Power, there was a proxy war of some sort in social and mainstream media. From that something came out in social media, particularly Facebook, intended as a derogatory slur against the incoming power distribution utility. And that is where our story begins.
On Facebook, there were several accounts (no longer active) – obviously paid trolls from the other “beauty parlor” – that started referring to MORE Power as “Moroy”, obviously a derogatory slur meant to embarrass and put the power distribution utility into some sort of lowlife image compared to the “sosyal” highborn image of the “mestizos” that make up the “beauticians” and principal owners of the now closed other “beauty parlor”.
For our purposes and to get into the flow of the story, let’s call those “beauticians” from the other “beauty parlor” as “Don Pecoy”.
To make a long story short, it didn’t work as intended. But what’s remarkable is that with a bit of creativity they were able to turn around an obvious derogatory slur into a positive image. “Nong Moroy” became the new power distributor’s mascot akin to “Dagoy”, the official festival mascot of Dinagyang.
So what are “Nong Moroy’s” roles? He is a special envoy. He shares tips to consumers. He translates into layman’s terms technical objectives for the consumers’ easier understanding and is also a social media ambassador.
Aside from that, “Nong Moroy” is also an information conduit, a friend of consumers, solutions provider, a linesman and an employee of the power distribution utility.
“Nong Moroy” is a classic everyman, a brilliant display of creativity, the perfect in-your-face up-yours to Don Pecoy’s obvious lack of creativity with this crude display turned 360 degrees against them.
So what has Nong Moroy done so far for the natives of “I Am Iloilo City”?
For the first time in a hundred years, “I Am Iloilo City” now has the lowest electric rate in the country at P6.45 per kilowatt hour and it took “Nong Moroy” to do it.
“Nong Moroy” has fulfilled his promise to give the natives of “I Am Iloilo City” the lowest electric rate possible and he did it with P6.45 per kilowatt hour, the lowest in the country starting the month July till December, hopefully beyond that.
Iloilo City can brag about having the cheapest electric rate and the cleanest coming from a sustainable geothermal source.
Despite the recent hiccup caused by NGCP’s damaged submarine cable causing an increase in line rental and electric rates, Iloilo City’s power distribution utility still has the lowest in the region at P7.99 per Kilowatt hour.
The natives of Iloilo City can take comfort that this is only temporary, hopefully just this month until NGCP has repaired the damaged submarine cable.
Of course, with Nong Moroy’s ongoing relentless campaign against illegal electrical jumpers, the number of legal electrical connection subscribers from 62,000 plus has increased to 85,000 plus.
Still on brownouts, this latest innovation aptly called the Automatic Circuit Recloser now installed in almost all the power lines in the city can restore your power in just five seconds after it detects a fault line. If a fault is still detected, a temporary power interruption will occur again, and a second attempt to restore your power will automatically begin after 80 seconds.
We can now avoid long unexpected brownouts with the Automatic Circuit Recloser technology as it restores your electric connection almost immediately after a power outage.
We are in the midst of a pandemic and achieving herd immunity is perhaps the only way for us to have a semblance of return to normality and the only way to do this is vaccinate at least 70 percent of the natives of “I Am Iloilo City”.
Mayor Jerry Treñas has called for “all hands on deck” to save ourselves and the city and to answer his call, “Nong Moroy” donated 5,000 dozes of AstraZeneca vaccines to ramp-up the city’s vaccination program and its fight against COVID 19.
Not bad at all. In fact it’s very good. Indeed, well played “Nong Moroy”/PN
