Palawan power crisis once more highlights weakness of electric cooperatives

Palawan business leaders have been feeling the pinch of persistent and prolonged power brownouts in the province and the city of Puerto Princesa and warned the problem “could get worse” and could jeopardize efforts to make Palawan a major international tourist destination.

In the past few months, local business leaders have noted that the power interruptions have become longer and more frequent, and have become a major disincentive to business and tourism.

According to the National Power Corporation (NPC), there are some 40 megawatts (MW) of installed electrical capacity in the province while the peak demand reaches only 21 MW, so the problem could only lie within Palawan Electric Cooperative (Paleco), the local distribution unit. NPC is however silent on how much of the installed capacity is dependable, but it is unthinkable that half of it cannot be dispatched.

In many rural areas and island provinces, power supply has been a major complaint regarding basic necessities, and the common denominator of these areas is that power distribution is being handled by poorly managed, inefficient electric cooperatives. Electric cooperatives which have been given passing marks by their consumers are the exception.

Perhaps, it is about time to have a radical re-think about electric cooperatives. With no shareholders breathing on their necks, management of many of these cooperatives does not have real incentives to professionalize its operations. Oftentimes, management and members of the board are handpicked, or beholden to local officials, if not directly controlled.

There seems to be a lack of incentive to modernize the equipment, or at least maintain properly the existing ones. Customer service is farthest from the minds of these minnows pretending to be running a basic service provider.

Why is it that there is no concrete strategy to ultimately privatize these distribution units?

It used to be that these basic services (power distribution, telecommunications, and water) were thought to be a natural monopoly of the state, and therefore, should be run, or at least controlled by local government units. Not anymore, as shown by the telecommunication and water distribution—at least in major urban areas—industries.

Whenever there is clamor to privatize an electric cooperative, there seems to be a helluvah of opposition. But if you listen carefully above the din, the noise one seems to hear is that of local political interests who are likely to lose some perks and wealth once control is transferred to the private sector--not the consumers who silently groan under inefficient services and high rates.

Palawan is but a sorry example of our sordid, highly inefficient electricity distribution systems in many parts of the country.