The canned sardines industry benefited from the stable electricity supply of Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative Inc. which helped fuel the city’s economic growth.
The city is dubbed as the “sardines capital” as bulk of the country’s sardines and canning factories are located there.
Zamboanga City vice mayor Josephine Pareha said the stable electricity supply from Zamcelco greatly helped the sardines industry and enticed more investors.
Pareha said prior to Zamcelco’s investor management contract with Crown investments Holdings Inc., several hours of power outages resulted in sardines spoilage.
“During blackouts, it takes 10 to 15 minutes for the generators to run and, in that time, the fish becomes spoiled and the smell of rotting fish was so strong. Today, people no longer complain about that,” she said.
Pareha said more investors were coming into the city such as malls and large real estate projects.
Business process outsourcing companies and call centers also started to take interest in Zamboanga City’s potential.
“When investors come in, they want stable electricity first and second water supply. Today, many businesses are coming in and Zamcelco has to be ready for that,” Pareha said.
Zamboanga City councilor Vincent Paul Elago said Zamcelco’s GetSET25 (Get Stable Electricity Twenty-25) campaign would help ensure better services and stable power.
“This is really meant to bring about a better Zamcelco, which means better provision of power energy, electricity to the people of Zamboanga…We never saw anything as aggressive as what they trying to do with a timeline 2025,” Elago said.
He said Zamboanga City’s electric rates are now lower compared to other cities such as Cagayan de Oro and Davao City.
“I think IMC us the biggest business investment in the city…If you observe, there are more business businesses operating in Zamboanga compared to before. I would say indirectly because of the entry of the IMC, because of the improvement in delivery of power to the residences, people are kind of like encouraged,” Elago said.
Councilor Charlie Mariano said Zamcelco’s financial, technical and overall operational situation significantly improved.
“Because the original problem of Zamcelco centered on the lack of financial capacity to address capex as well as other improvements in the delivery of services to consumers,” Mariano said.
“We are now looking at a new Zamcelco more able and more competent to address the requirements of the city,” he said.
Councilor Rogelio Velasco said Zamcelco was able to gain the trust of the member-consumers through transparency, accountability and accessibility efforts.
“I think that’s the positive thing coming out from this IMC thing with Crown Zamcelco staging all these, trying to salvage actually a sinking boat and, I think, that scenario alone is already promising,” he said.
