ESAMELCO seeks ERC’s OK on P750M loan; consumers fear power hike

By MEDORA NB QUIRANTE
February 12, 2012

BORONGAN CITY  –  To improve the services it renders to its consumer-members, the Eastern Samar Electric Cooperative (ESAMELCO) is seeking authority from the Energy Regulation Commission (ERC) to secure a P750M loan.

ESAMELCO’s ten-page application addressed to ERC, schedules projects that, it says, will “contribute to the improvement of the [cooperative’s] distribution network”.

But the provincial government of Eastern Samar under Gov. Conrado B. Nicart, Jr, also a member-consumer of the cooperative, fears that the approval of the loan would affect consumers’ bills so that it filed a petition for intervention on February 7, 2012.

“The prevailing economic condition here in the country and the province tells us that now is not the right time for an increase in power bills,” Provincial Legal Officer Atty. Christopher R. Coles said.

According to ESAMELCO’s application, an additional “P0.7169 per kilowatt-hour” will be passed on to its member-consumers once its Capital Expenditures Program, anchored on the multi-million peso loan, is approved.

As of press time, residential connections pay P0.4004 per kilowatt-hour for the Reinvestment Fund for Sustainable Capital Expenditures and debt servicing for ESAMELCO’s current loans, shown as “RFSF” on a consumer’s bill.

“I’m not convinced that consumers should be made to bear the brunt of paying for loans,” Reinier Ampong, a resident of Borongan City said.

For this reason, Ampong, whose household consumed 143 kilowatt-hours last month and paid P57.26 for the RFSC last month, signed a petition for intervention filed by other member-consumers in Borongan City.

In an interview with ESAMELCO Officer-in-charge Marilyn Reyes, this writer learned that the City Government of Borongan and the Municipal Government of Guiuan also filed separate petitions.

If ESAMELCO gets the approval it needs for the loan, with the same usage, Ampong will have to pay P159.7739 for RFSC and will thus result to a P102.5139 increase in his electric bill (assuming all other charges remain the same).