Iloilo power firm keeps takeover bid at bay

ILOILO CITY — Iloilo’s lone power distributor continued to defend itself against growing pressure to give up its operations, including from a senator who had blamed the utility for an outage that coincided with two major events where he was a guest

Panay Electric Company Inc. (Peco), in a statement, also insisted that it would pursue its bid to have its franchise renewed, saying it was amenable to two power distributors operating in the city.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, an Iloilo native, on Tuesday called on owners of Peco to allow negotiations for the sale of its assets after two power interruptions hit the city on Monday.

Drilon was apparently irked by the outage that occurred before the opening of the Museum of Philippine Economic History at the former Elizalde Building and another interruption before a performance of the Philippine Madrigal Singers at St. Anne Parish Church in Molo District.

Maintenance

Drilon blamed Peco’s purported lack of capital investments for the power interruptions.

But Peco clarified that the power interruption was due to maintenance activities of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, which was announced three days earlier.

The second outage was “due to the opening of the circuit breaker of our power supplier Global Business Power.”

The circuit breaker opening caused an outage not only in Iloilo City but other towns being serviced by another utility, Iloilo Electric Cooperative.

“In both instances, Peco was not the cause of the outages,” according to the firm’s statement.

A bill renewing Peco’s franchise languished at the House committee on legislative franchises since its filing on July 31, 2017.