Central Negros Electric Cooperative will begin refunding its consumers an additional P11 million a month over a two-year period starting this June in compliance with an Energy Regulatory Commission order, Engineer Norman Pollentes, CENECO corporate planning manager, said Thursday, June 2.
The refund is expected to be about P0.15 per kWh depending on the actual power consumption of a consumer, Ervin Stan Leo Ticar, CENECO acting general manager, added in a statement.
The ERC this week ordered CENECO to implement the refund of its total net over-recoveries amounting to P237,949,425.51 incurred from February 2004 to December 2017.
This is on top of the P12 million a month CENECO began refunding its consumers starting January for P149 million in over-recoveries from 2018 to 2020, Pollentes said at a press conference.
That means the monthly refund will hit about P23 million, he said.
CENECO has 213,950 consumers, he said.
Pollentes said CENECO is still processing the provisions of the latest ERC order and is requesting for an exit conference with ERC.
They will be filing a motion for reconsideration to the ERC order to pay P237.9 million but it will not halt its immediate monthly refund to consumers starting this June, he said.
CBA ORDER
Lawyer Leonie Vee Garanzo-Apuhin, Ceneco regulatory and compliance officer, said they are still awaiting the CENECO Board’s decision on whether to file a motion for reconsideration to the Department of Labor and Employment’s order for the cooperative to implement the 2017 to 2022 economic provisions of its Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the CENECO Union of Rational Employees.
If the DOLE denies the MR they can still file an appeal with the Court of Appeals, she added.*