"This person has been misrepresenting himself. But he has been outed."
It turns out the one who’s been misrepresenting a legitimate consumers’ group in furthering his attacks against More Electric and Power Corp. was actually a former employee of Iloilo City’s former distribution utility who was rejected by the city’s new power distributor.
Koalisyon Bantay Kuryente president Halley Alcalde (not Alcarde as previously written in this column) has questioned the real intention and motives of Jose Allen Aquino who presented himself as a member of their group and attacked More Power.
Recall that Panay Electric Company came out with what turned out to be a fake news item against the new distribution utility using Aquino, who is a former PECO employee and who identified himself as the convenor of consumer group of KBK. It was later learned that he is not a member of the group.
According to Alcalde, Aquino was a former employee of PECO who resigned because he did not like the way the company was managed. He has even denounced PECO numerous times.
Aquino also created the Power Service Cooperative later on and attempted to get a contract with More Power but it was not approved. It can be seen in the Facebook page of PSC that the description of the group is a service cooperative whose founding members are former PECO employees including Aquino.
The FB page of PSC also show the photos of PSC’s product presentation to More Power last September 17, 2019.
“Because More Power did not accept his proposal, Mr. Aquino conspired with PECO to confuse and deceive the power consumers of Iloilo,” Alcalde claims.
Officials of KBK earlier reacted and rallied against Aquino for using the group during the recent virtual conference of PECO. During this meeting, Aquino said he would file a manifestation with the Energy Regulatory Commission to ask for a refund due to the alleged excess systems loss charges of More Power.
An official statement signed by KBK president Harley Alcalde said the group is preparing cases to be filed against Aquino for using the consumer group. They also wrote the ERC to clarify that what Aquino said does not reflect the sentiment of their thousands of members. They said Aquino is not connected to or a member of their group.
KBK, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is a power consumer group in Iloilo City. It is a coalition of different groups, including members of the Church, transport groups and teachers’ and parents’ associations.
Aquino ran for city councilor of Iloilo thrice. He lost every time.
* * *
Hope.
Last week, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian bared that some 1,500 Filipinos have participated in the Phase 3 trial of a vaccine against COVID-19 being developed by a Chinese pharmaceutical company.
Ambassador Huang said that since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has been actively engaging in vaccine research and development. As of now, the WHO has recorded 34 candidate vaccines which are in clinical evaluation around the globe.
There are now eight candidate vaccines in Phase 3 trials. This is the final phase before commercial use. Among the eight, four are from Chinese vaccine developers, including two from Sinopharm, a subsidiary of China’s leading vaccine producer China National Pharmaceutical Group. One is from Sinovac Biotech, while the other is from CanSino Biological.
The company has also launched Phase 3 clinical research in some other countries including Bahrain, Argentina, Peru and Morocco, involving more than 50,000 volunteers from 115 countries with leading progress in all aspects.
Ambassador Huang added that hundreds of thousands of people have received vaccinations of Sinopharm’s vaccine since China launched emergency use of Covid-19 vaccines on July 22. There have been no cases of severe adverse effects or infection.
Relevant tests of SinoPharm’s vaccine against major COVID-19 virus strains, including those from Beijing Xinfadi as well as other regions of Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Austria, etc., showed promising results in both safety and efficacy.
Asked when the vaccines will be ready for mass commercial use, Ambassador Huang was optimistic and revealed that according to Sinopharm, the vaccine is likely to be on the market by the end of December. The company has built two high-level biosafety production facilities both in Beijing and Wuhan, with an annual production capacity of 300 million doses.
With the expansion of production capacity, the annual output will reach 800 million to 1 billion doses in the future.
And with Filipinos being participants in the Phase 3 trial of the vaccine, we have reason to believe we will be among those in the priority list to be supplied the vaccine once it becomes available. And maybe, our own Food and Drug Administration will have to do without its own trial before giving the vaccine a go-signal since Filipinos have already taken part in the trial period.
At least, we now have something to hope for this Christmas.