THE Central Negros Electric Cooperative will join the protest of all electric cooperatives all over the country against the budget cut of the National Electrification Administration (NEA) in the proposed national appropriation.
They will hold a candle lighting Friday night, August 31.
Roel Venus, Ceneco member-consumers integrated services division chief and Malou Parroco, Ceneco public relations officer, said the candle lighting will be held from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the utility firm’s main office at Mabini Street.
They will also form the figure 275 which represents the lighted sitios under the coverage area of Ceneco.
All Ceneco employees, member-consumers, government officials, community leaders and concerned individuals are invited to join the candle lighting, Venus said.
During the activity, Venus said they will also sign a pledge of commitment to communicate to the legislators the importance of electrification in the development of the communities and to lobby for their full support for electrification, to request representatives in the Congress to allocate more funds in the sitio electrification program of NEA and to convince legislators to sustain the said program being implemented by electric cooperatives which is crucial and indispensable to achieving the target of total rural electrification by 2022.
Aside from candle lighting, Ceneco will also hold tree-planting and line clearing activities in Barangay Bunga and Pandanon Silos in Salvador Benedicto in the morning.
"These activities will be simultaneously done by 121 electric cooperatives nationwide," Venus said.
Several national officials including Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has expressed disapproval of the budget cut, leaving NEA with less than P 1 billion from its initial proposal of P 1.6 billion for 2019.
NEA has been targeting to power sitios since there are still 19,000 sitios without access to power.
To keep in line with the administration’s deadline, NEA would have to accomplish total electrification within the next five years.