"Black Monday": Magelco forces clients to pay monthly bills by shutting power 

COTABATO CITY  – The Maguindanao Electric Cooperative (Magelco) will resort to drastic move in a bid to let its member-consumers into paying monthly electric bills for the cooperative to free from the bondage of debt.

Magelco General Manager Ashary P. Maongco said the cooperative have no other recourse but to implement a power shut down unless member consumers settle its obligation with the power distributor.

“Only 16,000 out of the 47,000 member-consumers or 34 percent are regularly paying their monthly electric bills,” Maongco said in a statement, adding that it caused the cooperative unable to pay its obligations to Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation.

Responding to quesitons why include paying members in power outage when they regularly pay, Maongco said it cannot be selective since one transformer has both paying and non-paying clients.

The Magelco plan has solicited reactions from officials of the Bangsamoro Autonomous REgion in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and Maguindanao.

Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, minister of the BARMM Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG-BARMM), said: “I do not think it is prudent to resort to a 'collective punishment' for the failure of the management of Magelco to effectively collect as it will affect everyone including government offices and institutions rendering vital services to the people."

"They can disconnect delinquent clients but there is no justice in penalizing good clients. We are advising the manager not to resort to this drastic action. We will inquire more deeply into this issue as it will have serious impact on our government programs and a stable power supply is essential to the development of the region,” said Sinarimbo, also BARMM spokesperson.

"It is very saddening to learn this so short notice of the lone electtic cooperative in the province of Maguindanao of its action, the Black Monday, would mean total datkness again in this part of the province," Anwar Kuit Emblawa, spokesperson of Shariff Aguak Mayor Marop Ampatuan, said.

"And I am also saddened with the attitude of some member-consumers wherein they do practice being delinquent for the past years which is really unfair to member-consumers that are religiously paying their obligation," Emblawa said, adding that he is calling Magelco management to do its best in the collection and refrain from the total disvonnection of the two feeder sub-stations in Datu Saudi Ampatuan and Ampatuan towns, respectively.

He also urged Magelco to sit down with town mayors and other local leaders in Maguindanao to provent total black out.

Maongco who had been the Magelco general manager for the past five years said he fixed the daily 8-12 hours rotational blackout that the province had experienced for three years prior to his assumption.

Back then, PSALM only gave Magelco a measly 2.75 Megawatt (MW) a month of power supply allocation. He said through his efforts PSALM increased the supply for Magelco to 24 MW a month.

“Recently, I signed a 10 MW contract with PSALM,” he said, making the monthly allocation for Maguindanao to 34 MW.  He did not say how much Maguindanao’s power demand.

He said in 2015, Magelco has an outstanding debt of PHP1 billion with PSALM and PHP123 million with the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

Maongco said the debt with NGCP had been resolved with the cooperative paying P9 million a month. “While with PSALM, the current financial consideration of our payment applies only to the interests and other charges,” he said.

Despite having huge debts, Maongco said Magelco has to augment its power sub-stations due to rising demand putting up new projects for 20 MW at a cost of about PHP50 million.

“Still, we owed ₱25 million to our suppliers. And, an additional amount of ₱15 million for our metering project and other upgrading programs,” he said.

Maongco issued an appeal to member consumers.

“I am appealing for your kind understanding and indulgence that we will implement the 70-30 restructuring scheme. We will shut down every distribution transformer. We will only return the power if at least 70 percent of the connected consumers paid their outstanding bill or enter into a restructuring agreement, the 30 percent or remaining consumers will be disconnected,” he said.

“To effectively send the message across, we shall be shutting down every distribution transformer on December 9, 2019. We opt to call that day a Black Monday,” Maongco said.

He justified the move by saying “this is the only way that we can entice every consumer to settle their obligations religiously in order to prevent the imminent disconnection of PSALM.”

“We will do it in order to survive and to protect the future of our children,” he said.