LEGAZPI CITY—The Manila Electric Co. and San Miguel Corp.’s Albay Power and Energy Corp. (Apec) will rehabilitate the ailing Albay Electric Cooperative (Aleco), which was privatized in January 2014.
Meralco will disconnect erring Aleco consumers with delinquent accounts and the more than 30,000 not in the data base. The power distributor will also clear and improve power lines.
When Apec took over in 2014, it inherited Aleco ‘s P4-billion debt, which has risen to P5.6 billion. The principal amount has yet to be settled by Apec, according to officials of the Aleco Employees Organization.
A dismal 50-percent collection efficiency and more than 30-percent systems loss greatly hampered Apec efforts to rehabilitate Aleco and provide the great power service San Miguel promised after a year in operation.
SMC then reassigned Apec general manager Manuel Imperial to Manila, Aleco interim board member Magen del Rosario said. Imperial was the second Apec general manager dispatched to Bicol after his predecessor Alan Marchan from Manila was declared a persona non grata by the Albay Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The interim board, created by the National Electrification Administration in 2013 to formulate the Aleco privatization laws, is headed by Legazpi Bishop Joseph Baylon. It represents Aleco interest in Apec.
Del Rosario said Meralco joined Apec on September 4 and three new SMC men were brought in the Albay firm—retired NEA deputy administrator Edgar Piamonte, who will manage Apec district 2, and retired Meralco engineer Carlos Larosa, who will head Apec district 1 and 3. The other new face in Apec is retired National Power Corp. spokesman and former Tiwi mayor Patricia Gutierrez who will serve as Apec spokesman.
Last month, Imperial confirmed that SMC was asking Meralco to be the service provider in Albay after Apec’s rehabilitation that the Aleco employees union rejected, failed.
Many of the workers were dismissed from service months before Apec took over in 2014. Some 70 of the dismissed Aleco employees, however, won a return to work order from the secretary of labor in February 2014 but Apec refused to readmit them.
Equipped with the RTWO, the dismissed employees provided free services by reconnecting disconnected consumer lines without Apec’s knowledge and consent.
Imperial admitted that Apec’s collection efficiency was sabotaged by the RTWO, the holders of which asked consumers to stop paying for their electricity.
He said that when the Aleco turned over documents and data base to Apec, the names of some 180,000 of the 225,000 Aleco consumers were missing in the data base. Thus, Apec could not collect payment as it could not send bills except to some 40,000 consumers in the data base, Imperial said.