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Friday, March 29, 2024

NEA to decide on town’s power coop

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SAN LEONARDO, Nueva Ecija—The National Electrification Administration should decide if it will allow the town of Dingalan, Aurora to get its electricity from another electric cooperative.

Ramon M. de Vera, general manager of the Nueva Ecija Electric Cooperative Area 2 or Neeco 2, said this over the weekend after the Dingalan municipal government requested that it replace the “inefficient” Aurora Electric Cooperative or Aurelco as its power provider.

“Let the NEA decide,” De Vera said when asked if Neeco is willing to put Dingalan under its area of coverage.

De Vera explained that Dingalan is covered by the franchise of Aurora province, and said he expects NEA to conduct a hearing on the petition made by town officials.

He said he sees no problem if Dingalan is placed under Neeco 2, since it used to be part of the areas the cooperatives serviced in 1997, until it was transferred to Aurelco in 2000.

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“It wouldn’t look good if we pushed to get Dingalan. It would take a hearing at NEA,” he said.     

The move to transfer Dingalan to Neeco 2 from Aurelco was triggered by a municipal council resolution and all 11 of the town’s barangay councils, citing the latter’s “poor performance and exorbitant power rates.”

In Sangguniang Bayan Resolution 2017-227 passed during the 25th regular session of the 17th town council at the municipal session hall, councilors asked De Vera to facilitate the transfer of electric services to Neeco 2 instead of Aurelco, which supplies power to Dingalan and seven other towns of Aurora.

The resolution was authored by Councilor Shiela Taay, whose brother, Mayor Shierwin H. Taay, has expressed dismay over Aurelco’s “inefficient services.” 

The move was supported by Vice Mayor Edgardo R. Galvez and the barangay councils of Aplaya, Butas na Bato, Caragsacan, Davildavilan, Dikapanikian, Ibuna, Matawe, Paltic, Poblacion, Tanawan and Umiray, which also passed their respective resolutions seeking to move out of Aurelco’s coverage.

The Association of Barangay Chairmen in Dingalan, led by its president Vic Maneja of Barangay Caragsacan, supported the move. They cited Aurelco’s high power rates, inadequate and unstable power supply, fluctuating current which damages appliances, slow response to consumer complaints, disorderly installation of electric posts and wires, erroneous meter reading, and questionable computation of bill consumption, among other reasons.

Aurelco also charges P15 per kilowatt-hour of electricity, almost double the P8.10 kwh for Neeco 2, which covers the Nueva Ecija towns of Bongabon, Gabaldon, Gen. Natividad, Gen. Tinio, Laur, Llanera, Peñaranda, Rizal, San Leonardo, Sta. Rosa and Palayan City.

The move to include Dingalan in Neeco 2’s coverage areas came three months after Taay lodged a complaint before the management of Aurelco for erroneous reading in the billing it issued about the electrical consumption of a municipal government facility last November.

Taay took Aurelco general manager Noel Vedad to task for several discrepancies in the statement of account for the municipal ice plant in Barangay Aplaya in its November billing.

He sought a review of all previous SOAs of the town and expressed concern that Aurelco may have also committed erroneous computations of the billings of household consumers.

In the past, Aurelco has come under fire for its poor performance despite receiving a P159-million subsidy and a P41-million loan from the NEA. 

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