ILOILO City – The “Pantawid Liwanag” program Phase 1 of the Iloilo Electric Cooperative (Ileco) I, II and III benefited over 90,000 consumers in Iloilo province last year.
The three electric cooperatives extended a total of P8.5-million assistance to their lifeline residential consumers amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Pantawid Liwanag is a corporate social responsibility program and initiative of the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association, Inc. to help Ileco member-consumer-owners mitigate the effects of the pandemic.
Lifeline consumers are those consuming less than 50 kilowatts per hour (kWh). Most of them are members of barangay power associations.
Each electric cooperative has different parameters on how to implement the program.
For Ileco I, General Manager Engineer Miguel Paguntalan said they granted around P4.6-million Pantawid Liwanag assistance to around 36,000 lifeline consumers.
“I was very thankful sa board of directors. They were one in providing assistance sa aton mga lifeline consumers…Dapat ang mga member-consumers ng mga lifeliners mataw-an gid ti importansya,” said Paguntalan.
Ileco I also streamlined the application requirements especially for successors of accounts whose previous holders were already dead. They also waived the payment for bill guarantee deposit.
Ileco II general manager Engr. Jose Redmond Eric Roquios, on the other hand, said around 22,534 of their member-consumers benefitted from the program. The power bills of lifeline residential consumers were waived amounting to a total of P2.3 million.
“Sa Ileco II, tanan namon nga lifeline (consumers) libre gid 100 percent,” he said.
Ileco III, meantime, provided 50 percent off on power bills of their 32,000 lifeline consumers. The total aid granted to the beneficiaries amounted to P1.6 million, according to its Institutional Services Division (ISD) manager Christine Joy Hermano.
The Pantawid Liwanag program has a Phase 2 but this time, it is not already funded by the cooperatives.
Hermano said as lobbied by party-list congressmen representing electric cooperatives, the fund is downloaded through the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
“May certain allocation lang na sya per coop. So for Phase 2, we have P300,000 per coop and then depende na sa coop mag-select sang beneficiaries nila. I think Ileco I, II and III naka-pay out na kami and then may mga succeeding pa ini sya nga fundings pa from our congressmen. Ginapili namon ang beneficiaries who are mostly indigents,” Hermano explained./PN
