Napocor cuts off power to 2 ARMM provinces
COTABATO CITY – The National Power Corp. cut off supply of electricity to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) provinces of Maguindanao and Shariff Kabunsuan at noon yesterday as consumers in the two provinces have unpaid bills amounting to some P300 million.
Engineer Norie Unas, Maguindanao provincial administrator, appealed to consumers to settle their unpaid accounts with the Maguindanao Electric Cooperative (Magelco), which buys power from Napocor.
“We can survive without electricity in our homes as long as we have food and water, but our economy cannot. Without electricity, our economy will retrogress,” Unas said.
Maido Wawa, president of Magelco, said he has grown tired of reminding the cooperative’s member-consumers to settle their accounts.
“Whenever our linemen and collectors would go to the houses to collect, they are threatened with guns. What can they do? They just turn their backs and leave for fear for their lives,” Wawa told reporters.
Wawa said one of the serious problems confronting Magelco is the wanton and excessive “power theft” in hostile areas where its workers cannot assert their supposed authority to stop such offenses.
“We need to do a lot of collections to enable us to pay the Napocor to have our power supply restored,” Wawa said.
The Magelco, which gets electricity from Napocor’s hydroelectric plants in Lanao del Sur and
Maguindanao has 24 towns while Shariff Kabunsuan has 11. Farmers there rely on power-driven rice and corn mills to process their harvest.
Wawa and Unas said though that municipal governments account for the bulk of the unpaid electricity.
Roger Rodriguez, a trader in Parang, Shariff Kabunsuan, said he noticed panic buying of kerosene at roadside gasoline stations in his town.
“I have sold eight dozens of kerosene-fed, pressure-type lamps since Saturday to buyers from Maguindanao and Shariff Kabunsuan,” a 60-year-old Chinese hardware store owner here, said.
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