War on ‘power thieves’ intensifies

ILOILO City Rep. Julienne Baronda has said she is fully supportive of the war on alleged power thieves in Iloilo City, who were declared by the city government led by Mayor Geronimo Treñas and the new distribution utility More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power), after a technical analysis supposedly showed there could be as many as 30,000 illegal power connections that existed in the city, especially under the old utility Panay Electric Co. (PECO).

She appealed to Ilonggos to help put a stop to such allegedly illegal operations by pointing to authorities where illegal power connections exist and, if they have one, to apply for a regular electrficty connection account with MORE Power.

Baronda said power thieves would exist so long as Ilonggos allow them to exist either by turning a blind eye to their existence or securing an illegal connection themselves.

She pointed out that Ilonggos pay for the cost of electricity allegedly stolen from these estimated 30,000 illegal connections that proliferated under the old utility.

These electricity load is part of the systems losses that account for onethird of ordinary consumers’ monthly bills, studies by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) showed.

Iloilo City has had one of the highest electricity rates in the country for decades and also ran up a systems loss rate consistently higher than the cap allowed by the ERC for such losses charged to consumers, with systems loss in the city’s distribution system reaching 9.3 percent in 2018 on the last year of PECO’s expired congressional franchise, according to the ERC.