SUNDAY, 30 JANUARY 2011 18:34 MANLY M. UGALDE / CORRESPONDENT
LEGAZPI CITY—Albay Gov. Joey Sarte Salceda is urging the take over of the Albay Electric Cooperative (Aleco) by the National Electric Administration (NEA), saying it’s the only way to rehabilitate the dying firm and save the province from constant threat of power disconnection.
Salceda made the recommendation following a new threat from the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) to disconnect power supply to Aleco set for tomorrow, February 1.
The notice of disconnection was the second attempt from the PEMC since last September for the failure of Aleco to settle some P1.2 billion in electric bills. The first attempt was halted by President Aquino following an appeal from Salceda.
The Albay governor admitted that Aleco with its 250,000 consumers is a problem cooperative in the hands of its current management, the Aleco board.
A source said Salceda had already given the green light for the controversial Aleco general manager Alex Realoza to step down.
The Ako Bicol Party-list said Aleco is the second worst power cooperative in the country due to mismanagement and corruption.
Realoza, however, defended the Aleco board management, saying the power firm had already been under NEA management thrice for so long, twice under a Church representative and one year under the National Power Corp. He said under the NEA, Church and Napocor management, Aleco was never rehabilitated. Realoza said he will step down only if the Aleco board will tell him to do so.
On Friday last week a multisectoral protest rally was held again in front of the Aleco office denouncing the cooperative’s alleged mismanagement and corruption.
Salceda was earlier reported to have floated the need to privatize Aleco, but the notion was strongly protested by the Church, the Albay Consumers Watch, militant groups and the NEA. The corruption and mismanagement issue also caused the unending infighting between the Aleco leadership and its employees’ union.
The source said privatization is the only solution to give life to the bankrupt Aleco.
Lawyer Bart Rayco said during the rally, his group is completing the documents for filing criminal charges against Realoza and the Aleco board.
Dante Jimenez, president of Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, also joined the rally saying consumers have been suffering unconscionably high electric-power bills.
Last November the Albay Consumers Watch said Aleco rate shot up by an average increase of 400 percent.
Salceda said Aleco owes P1.7 billion from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Corp. and P180 million to NEA.
Salceda said 60 percent of Aleco annual consumption of 300 million kilowatt-hours is dependent on the PEMC who sells power according to supply availability and demand. The PEMC is operating like a stock market, too costly for an electric cooperative, said Salceda.
In 2008 Aleco made a one-year contract with Napocor for its “operation and maintenance” through the efforts of Salceda in a bid to rehabilitate the dying Aleco. Some P250 million of funds from the Calamity Assistance Rehabilitation Efforts had been poured for Aleco’s rehabilitation by NEA in 2007 following Typhoon Reming, but nothing had come out better, lamented Albay Rep. Al Francis Bichara.
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