After the approval of House Bill 9805 by the majority of the members in the House of Representatives in the third and final reading of the 19th Congress, Power Watch secretary-general Wennie Sancho said Sunday, February 25, that he foresees the approval of this bill into law once it will be submitted to the President for his action.
"We are expecting big things to happen in the power industry once this bill is signed into law by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. We shall witness the implementation of the Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) which was already ratified by the Ceneco (Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc.,) consumers in a plebiscite," Sancho said.
The JVA defines the terms and conditions to be followed during the transition period once the legislative franchise is granted and becomes effective, he added.
The granting of the franchise to NEPC by Congress shall be a big challenge for the consumers and NEPC as a distribution utility, he said.
He pointed out that Power Watch Negros has very high expectations from NEPC to deliver quality, reliable, and secure power supply, and to perform its intended function of providing excellent services to the consumers.
Most consumers believed that the "changing of the guards" from Ceneco to NEPC is good riddance, a deliverance from decades of inconvenience and inefficient services brought about by mismanagement and abuse of power by the people who had been sworn to serve the consumers.
Rehabilitation requires a large amount of repair cost, he said, adding there is a need for Power System Reliability Evaluation upon the take-over of NEPC in the operation of Ceneco in order to handle changes in the system such as aging electrical devices.
He said, “For power system equipment like transformers, we should be concerned with their failure indices. Each electrical equipment should be coherent with its existing period. Most of Ceneco's equipment is no longer in its useful life period, but is already in the wear-out period.”*