WHEN you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke…a line from one of singer/songwriter Bob Dylan’s most iconic song, Desolation Row, but we won’t talk about that song or Bob Dylan, that’s another column. We will be talking about another joke played on the natives of “I Am Iloilo City”.
You know Moi has always thought that these corporate types and those who fancy themselves as corporate types are quite serious to the point of being boring. I suppose it’s the stereotype image one sees in them, wearing the usual corporate business attire and behaving like some serious business or corporate executive, whatever that is.
Lately the trend and almost becoming the norm is the dress down and totally unconventional image, i.e. Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his flip-flops, sweat pants and grey t-shirt and Apple’s the late Steve Jobs in his trainers, jeans and black turtleneck sweater.
Then there’s Marcelo Ugarte Cacho, lately the head of Public Engagement and Government Affairs of Panay Electric Co. (PECO); aside from his “impressive” title and whatever job description it brings and being a Cacho, he has another talent which is probably not common among corporate executive types – he has a sense of humor.
Excerpts from the Oct. 25, 2019 issue of Panay News:
PECO to spend P1.1B on innovations
ILOILO City’s power distributor Panay Electric Co. (PECO) plans to spend more than a billion pesos on innovations to improve services and bring down power cost.
The P1.1-billion capex plan will be sourced from internally generated funds.
“For the next 10 years we have to put in about P1.1 billion,” PECO Public Engagement and Government Affairs head Marcelo Cacho told reporters in a media roundtable in Taguig City on Wednesday.
Among the innovations in energy distribution PECO is investing in are smart metering and net metering.
“We’re expecting an investment close to P205 million…It’s P205 million just to replace the meters, so it’ll be fully automated system,” Cacho said.
Sounds lovely but what about this small thing hanging on PECO’s neck?
President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a law granting More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power), a firm controlled by billionaire Enrique Razon, a 25-year power distribution franchise in Iloilo City.
In a letter dated Feb. 14, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea informed then Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that the President had signed Republic Act No. 11212.
PECO’s franchise expired on Jan. 18, 2019, but it will
continue to operate under a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity
issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
PECO
has been allowed by the ERC to continue distributing electricity for up to two
years.
The provisional CPCN is valid until MORE Power has established and can fully operate its own distribution system.
PECO has at best two years temporary situation in “I Am Iloilo City” and they’re going to invest P1.1 billion in the next 10 years? Where? Obviously not in “I Am Iloilo City”, perhaps Taguig City.
Was that announcement by PECO’s head of Public Engagement and Government Affairs, Marcelo Ugarte Cacho, some kind of joke inspired by Monty Python’s dry British humor?
PECO doesn’t have a franchise anymore to operate as the power provider of “I Am Iloilo City”; the transition period is only until new franchise holder MORE Power has established and can fully operate its own distribution system. At best PECO has two years maybe less if they have not been filing delaying tactics in court and now they expect the natives of “I Am Iloilo City” to believe they’re going to invest P1.1 billion to improve and lower electric rates in the city?
It’s a weird joke and nobody’s laughing. Maybe, just maybe, PECO knows something President Rodrigo Duterte does not know.
It was done in poor timing and was completely overtaken by recent events i.e. two days of blackout in the Panay, Negros and Guimaras.
I started writing this column some two hours ago and since then we still have no power and my laptop’s battery is down to about 20 percent. I guess PECO is playing another one of its 1.1 billion cruel jokes on the natives of “I Am Iloilo City”. But we should not entirely blame them as these long power interruptions which seems to be the norm are caused by some sort of breakdowns at the National Grid Corp.of the Philippines or NGCP.
It is common knowledge that PECO buys power from generation companies i.e. Panay Power Corp. or PPC, Panay Energy Development Corp. or PEDC which is then transmitted to the NGCP (incidentally part of the SM Group which in turn distributes to power distribution companies i.e. PECO which then and sells it to the natives of “I Am Iloilo City” – so no power from NGCP, no power to PECO, equals day-long blackouts in “I Am Iloilo City” and the rest of the island.
Meanwhile the natives are restless. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
