Bacolod In Darkness: CENECO vs City Hall
"All lights are up in Bacolod City, except for its city hall because of a P4.9-million unpaid electric bill.
Vicente Sabornay, president of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco), said they disconnected the city hall's electric supply Thursday morning.
Sabornay said the electric cooperative sent a letter to Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia last December 19 asking for the payment of the city hall's alleged unpaid bill from July to November 2008.
Another letter was sent by the electric cooperative last January 5, this time warning the city hall that its electric supply will be cut if it fails to pay the amount.
Sabornay said the city hall never bothered communicating with Ceneco to explain its failure to pay the electric bill.
The Ceneco president, meanwhile, complained that the city mayor, instead of acting on their letter, sent people to their compound and locked it down.
Lawyer Allan Zamora, legal officer of Bacolod City, led policemen and the City Legal Enforcement Unit to the Ceneco compound and padlocked the electric cooperative's gates.
The local government's legal team also nailed woods on the Ceneco office.
The lock down was done after the city hall's issuance of a closure order on the electric cooperative for its alleged failure to pay franchise and real property taxes.
Sabornay said the Ceneco's lawyers are now studying possible legal moves against the city government.
He said the electric firm is also open to let the city government pay a partial amount for it's power supply's reconnection"(ABS-CBN)
While I am blogging this, parts of Bacolod City are now lights out, because of this stand still between City Hall and CENECO. Majority of Bacolod City's area are now in darkness. There is no assurance when the electricity will be resumed. This looks like a response of CENECO to the attitude of City Hall when their office was padlocked by the City. In case the lights will be out for the entire city, I feel a people's revolution spilling in the streets against Leonardia's administration.
Bacolod is in an edgy state. I am pretty sure that if this will not be resolved, the Bacolenos will definitely take control of the situation. Heads will roll, either in the City Hall or in CENECO. I am doing a quick blog here in case CENECO cuts our area's electricity as well.
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Comments
but it's over now, glad it's resolved.
pasalamat na lang ta kay bishop. ;-)
His response ? instead of doing what most people would do and pay their bill he decides to go padlock the electric companies admin offices and revoke their permits over unpaid taxes which is already a case being decided in the courts. The mayor then tells people to not pay their electric bills as he has revoked the permits of the power company.
The actions of the mayor and city hall caused most of the city of bacolod to lose electric power for 11 hours.
If this happened to one of my neighbors and their power was cut off for non payment,would i join his protest and not pay my electric bill? Probably not. So then i don't understand the mayor's call for the people to not pay their electric bills. I also don't understand how padlocking the administration offices of the electric company over a dispute that is being resolved in the court system can be considered a lawful action.
Bacolod would be better served by a mayor and members of city hall who can come up with a solution to a problem other than plunging the city into anarchy.