Tagbilaran power rates lowest in CV?

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines  – Even with the proposed rate adjustments by the Bohol Light Company, Inc. (BLCI), power rates per kiloWatt hour in this city would still be the lowest in Central Visayas compared with those of the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) and Mactan Electric Company (MECO) in Cebu.

BLCI general manager Eulogio Signe told The Freeman that, within the approved Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR), the firm’s proposed rate adjustment for commercial customers is only P5.68/kWh, against VECO’s P8.89/kWh and MECO’s P7.80/kWh.

For residential customer class, BLCI imposes P5.98/kWh, while VECO’s rate is higher at P9.19/kWh, and MECO at P8.15/kWh, said Signe.

Signe, in a sample computation, explained that for a residential consumption of 100-kW in a month, the bill in the old rate would be P644.49 and under the proposed new rate would be P671.03. This means an adjustment of only P26.54 per month, an amount that is even lower than the average daily expense on cell phone load, he said.

In another example, the bill under the old rate for a consumption of 500kW would be P3,127.13 and, under the new rate, would become P3,186.99. This shows a P59.86/month difference, which Signe said is even more affordable than one’s leisure drinking session.

This proposed rate increase has been designed to improve BLCI services and for absolute benefit of the entire circle of valued customers in the franchise area, he said.

Meanwhile, the City Council named Councilors Nerio Zamora II, Doni Piquero, and Bebiano Inting to represent the city government in the coming public hearing on BLCI’s application for the approval of the rate adjustment.

In the aborted hearing last September 20, BLCI legal counsel Remigio Michael Ancheta questioned the personalities of the councilors as official interveners over the proposed rate hike that consumers and government officials have opposed.

While BLCI is now reprocessing for another public hearing on the same purpose, the City Council’s committee on public utilities, chaired by Councilor Edgar Bompat, tackled the issue earlier.

The councilors argued that BLCI’s application for rate adjustments has no basis, “considering that it would result to disparity of the rates for the residential consumers as against the commercial consumers who have greater energy consumption which in effect adds burden on the part of residential consumers.” (FREEMAN)