"There is a simple reason why PECO cannot be allowed to resume operations."
It seems that Iloilo’s former distribution utility, the Panay Electric Co., still has to be made to understand why it cannot be simply allowed to resume operations – it has lost its legislative franchise to do so.
No less than former Parañaque Congressman Gust Tambunting dismissed PECO’s appeal before the Energy Regulatory Commission to get back its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity and allow it to operate anew. The city’s distribution utility is useless, having no legal basis to stand on.
According to Tambunting, former Vice Chairman of the House Committee on Legislative Franchises, the supplemental motion for reconsideration filed by PECO with the ERC last May 22, wherein it asked that it be given back its operational permit due to the alleged technical incompetence of More Electric and Power Corp., cannot be granted by the commission as PECO no longer has a legislative franchise.
Tambunting says that once PECO’s legislative franchise had expired, and when Congress approved MORE’s franchise application to serve as Iloilo’s DU, which was eventually granted by the President, there is now only one legitimate distribution utility that can operate in Iloilo. That is not PECO.
“MORE Power is the one with the franchise. MORE is free to ask the help of PECO if it sees fit but that would be have to be decided by MORE,” Tambunting said, stressing that PECO cannot insist on what it wants because its service to Ilonggos has ended.
Tambunting is one of the many lawmakers who supported calls to remove the franchise of PECO due to the numerous complaints and evidence regarding its failure to provide adequate, reliable and affordable electricity to Iloilo City.
Consumers from Iloilo City also swamped Congress with complaints against PECO for the thousands of incidents of fire involving PECO’s rotting electricity poles, overbilling and poor customer service.
The former solon added that PECO cannot cite allegations of high incidence of power outages in the city under MORE Power or invoked it to allow it to get back its CPCN. Even if MORE is found to be liable for such outages, there still to be a process by which MORE’s franchise could be rescinded. Add to it the fact that PECO has no legislative franchise as DU.
Actually, aside from the allegations of power outages, there are also insinuations made by Iloilo’s former DU that MORE has no technical competence to operate and manage the distribution facility of Iloilo City.
Ironically, this has to backfire on PECO after MORE Power president and CEO Roel Castro said they have enough technical people with vast experience in running the Iloilo City electricity distribution network under its employ. Among them are 70 employees from the technical team of PECO hired from service providers hired by PECO.
“There’s no point in saying that MORE has no technical knowledge to run a power company. The management and resources may have changed but we have the same technical people and engineers manning the whole system,” said Castro.
He pointed out that if MORE Power were not technically competent, its technical repair teams would not have set the shortest average response time to consumer complaints of one hour and 30 minutes. By comparison, PECO usually took more than a day or even weeks to respond to consumer complaints.
Also, if the allegations are accurate, then how come it is only PECO who is raising the alarm and not the consumers?
Anyway, if PECO is really hell-bent on reacquiring its role as Iloilo’s DU, it should first work on ways to revoke MORE’s franchise. It cannot simply kick away a legitimate distribution utility and take over it. Only then can it apply for another legislative franchise.
