Legazpi City and most Albay in the dark

Since yesterday Legazpi City, 2 other cities and 15 towns  of Albay are plunged into darkness.

The usually wonderful lights of Embarcadero in Legazpi City Photo courtesy of lakbaypilipinas.com 

At noon yesterday the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines cut off power to the Albay Electric Cooperative (Aleco) for failing to pay its remaining PHP 56,000,000 debt to its private power creditor, the Philippine Electricity Market Corp.

PEMC announced that they would only resume supplying power to Aleco if they settle their unpaid bills for June, and submit a list of their top 100 delinquent consumers in each of the three districts of Albay.

[Editor’s comment:] I am really curious to learn who are the 100 top non-payers. I have the bad feeling that some well known names would appear on the list. I got information saying that these 56 million pesos aren’t debts but interest payments of an overall 4 billion pesos debt.

The more important question is: Where has all the money gone from the honest electricity consumers? 
And when will the electricity cooperatives start to investigate about stolen electricity. I always find a neat amount on my bill called “system loss”.

And maybe Aleco’s bosses will experience now the same fate that the Zamcelco have seen years ago in Zamboanga.