Capitol power bill up again by Manuel Boy Mejorada

The electricity bill for the Iloilo Provincial Capitol went right back to almost P2 million for the month of March 2012 despite a directive for its personnel to observe energy conservation measures to bring down its power costs and deflect criticism that it entered into an expensive contract with Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC). Documents obtained by The News Today (TNT) showed that the latest power bill for the Iloilo Capitol surged once more to P1,925,594.76 for the period Feb. 26 to Mar. 25 following a slight dip of 9.4% the previous billing period covering Jan. 26 to Feb. 25 in the amount of P1,797.821.10 This represents an increase of 7.1% over the period Jan. 26 to Feb. 25, 2012, which the Iloilo Capitol press office hailed as a major accomplishment for the Defensor administration. With this latest power bill, the Iloilo Capitols allocation of P18 million for the fiscal year 2012 has been shaved to P12,292,397.62, a trend that could wipe out the budget by the month of September this year. The News Today tried to reach general services officer Roquito Resano to get an explanation on why the power bill still surged by P128,000 even after Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. directed Capitol officials and employees to minimize power usage to avoid excessive expenditures for electricity. However, Resano did not answer calls to his mobile phone. His secretary said he was out of the office when this paper reached his office phone. This power supply contract with PEDC was entered into by Defensor at the end of last year in what he described as a step toward bringing down the power bills of the Iloilo Capitol. Defensor criticized the old contract which the previous administration had with Green Core Geothermal Co. as excessive. Under this contract, the Iloilo provincial government agreed to pay PEDC, which operates the 160-mW coal fired power plant in barangay Ingore, Lapaz, the rate being charged by Panay Electric Co. (PECO) to its government customers at P10.57/kwh. Interestingly, the power bills of the Iloilo Capitol for the first three months under its contract with PEDC are consistently higher by almost a million pesos every month over the old, discarded contract. The Iloilo Capitol paid a total of P1,046,248 to Green Core and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines for the billing period Nov. 26 to Dec. 25, 2011 at a time when the entire building and its parking lot was ablaze with Christmas lights.

When its first bill came from PEDC for the period Dec. 26, 2011-Jan. 25, 2012, the Defensor administration was confronted with a whooping P1,984,236.54, or nearly a million pesos over the last bill from Green Core/NGCP. Ted Aldwin Ong, chair of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), said the new contract is definitely disadvantageous to the province. He could not understand, he said, the logic behind its move to go back to the folds of PECO. Ong also wondered aloud why the contract pegged the rates at P10.57/kwh when PEDC only sells its coal-generated electricity to PECO for only about P5.00/kwh. For me, this is highly questionable, he said. Why go back to the fold of the old which we had scorned when the existing contract was good? Ong asked. Former Iloilo Gov. Niel D. Tupas Sr. also criticized the present administration for putting a different meaning to the phrase reporma kag pagbag-o (reforms and positive change). He said Defensor could not justify the gargantuan increase in the Iloilo Capitols expenses for electricity. It was during the incumbency of Tupas that the Iloilo provincial government decided to leave the franchise grid of PECO and hook up directly with the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to take advantage of its cheaper rates. PECO initially blocked this move but relented when Tupas expressed his determination to bring down the power expenses of the Iloilo Capitol. At once, the Iloilo Capitol enjoyed dramatic cuts in its monthly electricity bills, and its capital investment in a power substation was fully recovered in just 18 months. Last year, the Defensor administration filed a criminal case before the Office of the Ombudsman against Tupas for supposedly entering into a contract with Green Core that he described as disadvantageous for the province. Tupas said he will file a manifestation with the Ombudsman to dismiss the case and present the power bills of the Iloilo Capitol during the first three months of 2012 as evidence that the old contract was in fact cheaper than what Defensor signed.