SFELAPCO cheats

IN THE heat of the consumers’ revolt over the projected spike in generation charges, I have kept the coolness of journalistic objectivity and fairness vis-a-vis SFELAPCO.

Unmoved even a bit by the passion of the moment, of the uproar of the masses – most manifest in the honorable Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag – even as both fused into a maelstrom of disgust, detestation, and denunciation of SFELAPCO.

Notwithstanding the adverse decisions and sanctions the Energy Regulatory Commission imposed upon the company – to a considerable extent effected by the efforts of Mayor Vilma – I stayed convinced that SFELAPCO was a victim too, just as the consumers it serves. Especially given those 10 long years that the ERC slept soundly on its petition for renewal of its power supply agreement.

And remained undoubting too in the truth of SFELAPCO’s rates far below those of the power cooperatives here even as its service is far high up in efficiency, in superiority. For I am most willing to pay the price for efficiency leading to personal comfort and convenience.  

Why, only last week, I happily heralded in Punto! SFELAPCO general manager Babes Lazatin’s announcement of four power firms joining the pre-qualification conference in the distributor’s bid to find affordable and stable electricity supply for its consumers. Swell.

Today, April 19, I can only look at SFELAPCO as a cheat. This, as I join the collective cry here in St. Jude Village over the spike in our power bills.

Still, I won’t fall for the canard passed around my community that SFELAPCO wanted its consumers to defray the expenses incurred in the miserably failed bid of a Lazatin scion for the city mayoralty. That is as much folly as falsity. 

I’d rather go by reason and hard facts to prove a point.

From the previous months’ P5,000 to P6,000-plus, the bill served us today stands at P8,364.01.

It is not the increase of P2,364 per se that made the blood boil. It is its irrationality.

 

Since September last year, we have in place a 5-kw solar energy system in the house. Yes, I have long forgiven SFELAPCO for taking all of five months before installing a REK meter – only last February, and for as long forgotten how much we could have saved, were it installed sooner.

 

For March 2023, our solar generation yield totaled 266kwh. Reflected in the current bill is a measly 14kwh. The scope and scale of cheating here is unconscionably humongous. Talk of power theft, this time not by your usual suspected jumper but by the distributor itself. 

And SFELAPCO even had the gall of stapling in our latest bill a “48-HOUR DISCONNECTION NOTICE” over "outstanding arrears" of P33.54! Yes, thirty-three pesos and fifty-four centavos! Seriously?

 

The wife pays SFELAPCO online – on time – based on the amount in the billing she receives by SMS. Now, we are being penalized for possible glitches in their system!

Hard-earned pesos by the thousands, we contribute to SFELAPCO’s coffers monthly, religiously, unquestioningly. Only to be slapped with a stern warning of power cutoff for allegedly defaulting over a highly questionable, ridiculous P33.54!

Devoid of an iota of corporate conscience, SFELAPCO is reduced to a scheming shyster.

Today, I join the battle.