HIDDEN AGENDA…

by Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez, is said to have recommended the grant of a franchise to MMC.

It has been reported that the Energy Regulatory Commission has castigated PECO for failing to refund P631 million in overbilling to its customers. The reports also say that customer bills increased by as much as 1,000 percent under a new metering scheme.

PECO is managed by the Cacho family of Iloilo, which according to critics, has failed to adapt to the modern times and make its service world-class.

Alvarez said this sorry record of incompetency and inefficiency has swayed committee members to no longer extend PECO’s franchise.

Singapore-based consulting firm WSP, which was contracted by the Iloilo Economic Development Foundation to study the systems of PECO, noted that the utility firm has yet to fully implement measures to make it a world-class utility, eight years after the business community made its recommendations.

PECO, through its counsel lawyer Manases Carpio, earlier assailed the House committee’s endorsement of the grant of power of eminent domain to MMC, even as Carpio said that the committee’s decision is patently void, illegal, and unconstitutional.

Carpio has also urged the committee to conduct more public hearings, this time inviting PECO representatives and other stakeholders.

WCK sponsors new church

The Wong Chu King Foundation will sponsor the construction of the Sto. Domingo Parish Church to be located within the Basilica of Our Lady of Piat compound in Cagayan.

With this, the Piat Heritage Museum, which is inside the Basilica, will be transferred to the Pilgrim’s Inn Building.

The Minor Basilica is a shrine where the centuries-old image of the brown Madonna, known as our Lady of Piat, is officially enshrined.

After a series of calamities and a fire that reduced both the church and convent of Sto. Domingo, built in 1740, to an irreparable state, the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao had to abandon the deteriorating church and convent and merge the parish to the Shrine of Our Lady of Piat.

The Archdiocese of Tuguegarao, headed by Archbishop Sergio Lasam Utleg, together with Basilica rector and Sto. Domingo Parish Priest Fr. Fredel Agatep, came up with the idea of constructing another parish to avoid conflicts between the pilgrims and parishioners regarding the use of the Basilica. The Basilica is primarily for the use of pilgrims, while the parish church is for the parishioners. With a separate church for weddings, funerals and other parochial functions, the local Catholics of Piat can freely use the Sto. Domingo Church without interfering with the pilgrims who gather at the Basilica for their devotions and Eucharistic celebrations.

Target date of completion of the Sto. Domingo Parish is March 30, 2019 in time for the founding anniversary of WCK Foundation.

Fr. Agatep said the archdiocese gave the foundation the opportunity to sponsor the construction due to the Wongchuking family’s deep Catholic faith and the founder’s philantrophic work

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