20c more per kwh
looming at Ceneco
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO

If the Energy Regulatory Commission approves the request of Central Negros Electric Cooperative to collect under recoveries totaling P414.6 million, it will mean that consumers will be charged 20-centavos more per kilowatt hour for three years, CENECO president Arnel Lapore said yesterday.

Lapore said the claims of the cooperative for under recoveries will enable CENECO to survive.

A hearing on the petition of CENECO, which was opposed by the Bacolod City government, BAYAN Muna, the Social Action Center of the Diocese of Bacolod, and other concerned consumer groups, was presided over by ERC hearing officer Ronaldo Gomez yesterday at CENECO.

A picket protest was staged yesterday in front of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Negros against the petition of the firm for the Energy Regulatory Commission to allow it to collect under-recoveries totaling P414.6 million.

The group also called for the scrapping of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act that marked the 11th year since it was enacted into law yesterday.

Bayan-Negros secretary general Christian Tuayon said they support the intervention of Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares in the ERC hearing yesterday and protest CENECO’s petition for power rate hike due to systems loss and other losses it has incurred.

A suspected notorious robber was shot dead by the owner of a house in Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod City, that he and his two unidentified companions ransacked at around 3 a.m. yesterday.

Killed was Emmanuel Cordova, 32, of Santa Catalina Street, Eroreco Subdivision in Brgy. Mandalagan, Bacolod, Station 4 chief, Senior Insp. Dianne Grace Aquitania said.

Cordova sustained a lone gun shot wound on the nape and was rushed to the Bacolod Doctors’ Hospital but he died while being treated several hours later.