Gamboa to CENECO: Be transparent, give us the documents

Former Councilor Wilson Gamboa, Jr., retorted the claims of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc. Board of Directors (CENECO-BOD) that “all contracts, all actions, all decisions are all legal” by demanding transparency and “give us all the necessary documents to prove that said contracts are legal”.

Gamboa explained, “Do not hide the facts and circumstances that took place when you rejected the legal Competitive Selection Process (CSP) winning bid price of P3.29/ KwH last year, May 2021, grounded on a flimsy reason that it was ‘dirty energy’, the only reason publicized for rejecting a CSP.”

He added, “CENECO members- consumers-owners in four Cities and two Municipalities could have enjoyed this P3.29/KwH lower rates for the next 10 years had it not been for your incompetence and dishonesty.”

Gamboa also explained that this CSP winning bid price of P3.29/KwH was not recalled, discussed or explained in the recent CENECO-BOD press conference last September 1, 2022, evidently to keep this truth from the members-consumers-owners naked eyes.

He also said, “Do not hide also under the ‘world fuel crisis’ justification for the meteoric monthly rate increases because world events are recent, external and inevitable, prices of all your contracts are fixed and said fuel crisis can be managed if you are competent enough and are forward-looking visionaries managing a multi-million-peso distribution utility.”

Electricity rates are fixed, as cited by a letter-petition now circulating online and offline, when the CENECO-BOD signed a 40-megawatt Power Supply Agreement (PSA) with KEPCO-SALCON (KSP) at the rate of P5.42/KwH that expired last May 25, 2021 and illegally extended it and accepted by KSP, at a reduced 20 megawatt for one (1) year, in the same amount of P5.42/KwH as against the winning CSP price of P3.29/KwH.

Also, same letter-petition cited that last July 26, 2022, CENECO once again entered into an illegal contract through a negotiated contract they call “Emergency Power Purchase Agreement” with Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC), a coal-fired power plant, of 20-megawatts at P10.74/KwH average generation cost, violating once again the Supreme Court ruling that all PSAs must undergo the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) or bidding and that certain processes should be followed according to the said Supreme Court ruling.

Gamboa stressed that “Emergency purchases, according to law, must be purchased at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), which by the way is only about P9.4151/KwH, as against the recent PCPC – PSA rate of P10.74/KwH or if the PSA is under a CSP bidding, CENECO is bound to charge the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) Time of Use (TOU) rate which is P3.7432, according to its website.”

He likewise stressed that the misery of the CENECO members-consumers-owners started when the CENECO-BOD rejected this P3.29/KwH winning CSP bid price; all succeeding actions and decision are “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus”, until the root cause which is the rejection of P3.29/KwH is resolved, everything else is “false in one thing, false in everything.”* (PPR)