Several areas in Bacolod City including the downtown area experienced black-out last Friday night. Except for business establishments with generators, the rest of downtown area had no electricity. The “power struggle” between the city government and the Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) had shown its ugly face and the consuming public are caught right in the middle of it.
Who’s to Blame?
CENECO disconnected the power connection of the Bacolod City Hall, new government center, Libertad Market and other government offices last Thursday morning citing the city’s failure to pay its accounts with CENECO.
As a result, the Bacolod City government padlocked the administrative building of CENECO after revoking its Mayor’s Permit for its failure also to pay its franchise taxes and real estate property taxes to the city.
CENECO claimed the black-out last Friday evening was because their vehicles were prevented by the City Legal Enforcement Unit from leaving their premises so they could not send their personnel.
This allegation was denied by City Legal Officer Allan Zamora in the newspaper. He said they only closed the business operations of CENECO and not their maintenance department. He said the vehicles of CENECO were not prevented to go out and were even parked outside the CENECO premises.
No matter how the two sides keep throwing the blame at each other, it’s still the public that’s in the losing end. This has to stop since it has already affected public service and the business sector and sending a bad impression to the investors.
All’s Well That Ends Well
It’s a good thing somebody mediated between the City Government and CENECO before things really got out of hand. Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, chairperson of the Committee on Communications and Energy, was reported to have asked Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra to mediate between the city and CENECO.
The city government and the CENECO reportedly arrived at a compromise agreement during a closed-door meeting at the Bishop’s House last Friday night. Power was restored in the City Hall and other areas in Bacolod City late Friday night.
We hope this will be the last time this incident will happen since a repeat of this may have a long term negative effect for Bacolod. Most investors prefer investing in the city because of the “business-friendly climate” and we, the public hope it will stay that way.