NEA budgets P28B to energize rural districts

The National Electrification Administration (NEA) will embark on an energization program for sitios and puroks, the basic units in rural barangays, estimated to cost P28 billion over 12 years. 

NEA administrator Edita Bueno said in the preparation of their Sitio Electrification Masterplan, they have noted that out of the 95,651 sitios in the country, only 69 percent have electricity access. 

The progam, Bueno said, will involve the electrification of 35,000 more sitios and will be completed by 2020. NEA will spend between P500,000 to P800,000 per sitio. 

Bueno said they believe that as a basic infrastructure for socio economic growth and sustainable development, the country’s Rural Electrification Program (REP) had been institutionalized to bring power to the remotest areas.  

The REP had, in fact, reached 96 percent of its targeted 36,030 barangays within the franchise areas of the electric cooperatives (ECs). 

Until the end of 2009, Bueno said some 1,496 remaining barangays are expected to be energized.  

The NEA chief said they have to redirect their focus on sitios and puroks to ensure equitable opportunities for all rural folks as the REP is nearing its completion. 

“These areas, considered the smallest units in the community, may yet represent the farthest reach of the program, where none had ever attempted to venture due to possible distortions on economies of scale and returns of investment,” she said. 

She added that two years ago, NEA started a self-commissioned research by tapping ECs and barangay councils to faciliate the data gathering. 

“Nowhere in the country can today be found available and complete data on these areas. It is from this perspective that the NEA undertook an independent research of the present profile of these sitios and puroks. Beginning April of 2006, the ECs and the barangay councils were tapped to facilitate their networking and linkages,” she said. 

She said the results are compiled in an electronic file, a product of almost one year of verification and consolidation.  

“The NEA is grateful to the joint efforts in making this project a reality, the first ever national list of sitios and puroks,” she said.