THE DAVAO del Sur Electric Cooperative, Inc. (DASURECO) in Digos City has suspended disconnections of power lines and extended bills payment to help relieve its consumer from the economic impact of the Enhanced Community Quarantine due to COVID-19 crisis.
DASURECO OIC-General Manager Ferdinand Canastra bared that the coop has put on hold the disconnections until further notice and provided a longer grace period for the consumers to pay their bills until April 30, 2020 or depending on the situation.
“Let’s see if the situation will normalize, when businesses will reopen, when the lockdown will be lifted. Then we will start implementation of disconnections,” he said during DASURECO’s Facebook page live public briefing on Monday (April 20).
The electric cooperative, which has its main base in Digos City and is serving the provinces of Davao del Sur and Davao Occidental, has accorded these assistance to its member-consumer-owners (MCOs) when the regional lockdown and the ECQ took effect.
Canastra said staggered payments are also acceptable so that consumers will not be burdened much after the extension of payment.
He said there are several collection/payment centers which are open for the paying consumers.
Aside from the suspension of disconnections and extension of payment, DASURECO has also free the electric bills of its 53,500 lifeline MCOs with one-kilowatt hour to 30kwh power consumption for the months of March and April through the Pantawid Liwanag program.
The DASURECO official revealed that the present situation has also affected the financial operations of the coop, not to mention the effect brought about by the series of earthquake that severely hit the province late quarter of last year.
Canastra bared that the Pantawid Liwanag assistance however would cost the coop an estimated loss of income worth P8 million.
He said that they are expecting less revenues for DASURECO, and added that they would not be able to meet their projection on the revenues so they need to slash expenses.
“We have to revise the budget and slash some millions of expenses in order to balance with the revenues,” he stated.
Canastra explained that if expenses will continue while revenues have lessened, then DASURECO will incur deficits.
“We can’t afford shortfalls because time will come that we can no longer pay our suppliers. Then there will be a total blackout,” he said.
Meanwhile, Canastra asked for the understanding of the households on the continued reading of meters by the coop’s linemen.
“They are just implementing their mandates, so that all members will be given their exact billing through the meter reading,” he explained in the vernacular.
He reminded the consumers to be cautious on power overloading, cooking of food and using of candles which may cause fires especially during the onset of summer season.
He also asked for the understanding and patience of the public on power outages, as he assured that DASURECO’s linemen are on standby 24/7 to immediately address power glitches.
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