City to oppose power cooperative’s collection of P414M

By Carla N. Canet and Karl G. Ombion

Thursday, April 26, 2012

THE City Government of Bacolod will file before the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in Pasig City on Thursday its opposition to Central Negros Electric Cooperative’s (Ceneco) move to collect P414-million “under recoveries” from its consumers.

Ceneco filed an application before the ERC regarding the implementation of the automatic cost adjustments and corresponding confirmation process, pursuant to ERC Resolution No. 16, series of 2009 as amended by Resolution No. 21, series of 2010.

Lawyer Sonny Petierre said the Office of the City Mayor received a notice dated April 3, 2012 on the ERC order dated March 28, 2012 finding the application of Ceneco to be sufficient in form and substance, thereby setting the hearing on April 26.

The city strongly opposed the application because the approval and implementation of the under recovery P414,668,418.36 is anti-consumer, unconscionable and unreasonable.

Burdening the consumers of such huge amount is indeed not to the interest of the public and could never be for the affordability of the supply of electric power, said city’s lawyers Petierre and Goldwin Nifras.

They said Ceneco did not conduct public hearing or consultation to inform and explain to the consumers the purpose and effect of implementing the collection of under recoveries of generation cost, transmission cost and systems cost, among others.

The lawyers said this move is serious offense of Ceneco of the rights of the consumers to information, particularly on important matters such as charging and collecting from the consumer-members losses or generation/transmission costs dating 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

In 2011, out of the P414,668,418.36, the amount to be charged or collected from consumers is P296,086,470.37 or 71 percent of the total cost while from 2004 to 2010, the amount to be collected is only P118,581,743.99 or only 29 percent.

The City Government will ask ERC to direct Ceneco to conduct consultation to its consumer members and explain the purpose, reason and effect of the application for under recovery.

Meanwhile, ERC chairperson and CEO Zenaida Cruz-Ducut said Wednesday the hearing on Ceneco’s application is scheduled today, Thursday in Manila.

But Ducut said the Commission will conduct subsequent hearings in Bacolod on the same issue for the interest of Ceneco consumers.

Ducut’s statement came a day after Bayan Muna representatives Teddy Casino and Neri Colmenares called for the postponement of the hearing and that subsequent hearings be held in Bacolod instead.

In their letter to Ducut, the two lawmakers said, "Considering that the consumers who will bear the burden of the proposed rates are based in Bacolod, the conduct of hearings in Manila will surely put at a disadvantage not only the petitioners but the consumers who may want to participate in the hearings."

Bacolod Councilor Arche Baribar also proposed that the conduct of the hearings should be in Bacolod. His resolution was unanimously approved by the City Council in its session Wednesday.

Published in the Sun.Star Bacolod newspaper on April 26, 2012.   source