Aboitiz Power Corporation has committed to their host communities of continued support as it injects more fund to help alleviate the economic woes of people across its project sites.
This developed as the Department of Energy (DOE) remitted P714 million to Aboitiz Power. The P714-million financing came from DOE's Energy Regulations (ER) 1-94 fund collected from power companies to help projects of their host communities. During the pandemic, the fund was realigned for COVID-19 response of LGU-host communities.
Aboitiz Power President and CEO Emmanuel V. Rubio said they are “glad that we get to support our host communities during these times (and) that every centavo counts and (we) hope to be able to keep giving back.”
Host communities include: Barangay NBBN in Navotas City which is the site of the company’s barges; Barangay Ermita in Cebu City, a host-local government unit to one of its oil-fired plants; and Barangay Inawayan in Sta Cruz, Davao del Sur, the project site of its Therma South Inc coal plant.
For the endowments from ER 1-94 during the pandemic, Aboitiz Power indicated that around 119 of its host communities “have used the funds to build isolation facilities as well as purchase relief goods and medical suppliers.”
The power firm’s other host communities similarly funneled funds into acquisition of testing kits, ambulances, multipurpose vehicles and the establishment of Covid-19 testing labs.
“We will continue to work with the DOE and LGUs through this program as we look forward to a better normal,” said Rubio.
The ER 1-94 fund originally was intended for the electrification of host communities, the underserved and unserved areas, and for the development and livelihood programs. It was also intended for reforestation, watershed management, health and environmental enhancement initiatives.
It was in April last year when the DOE issued a circular allowing the re-alignment of ER 1-94 fund for the COVID-19 response of LGUs as well as in communities hosting energy projects – primarily power generation facilities.
One of the major prescriptions on the fund use for COVID-19 is that it will be for “the facilitation of mass testing by providing and constructing facilities and/or acquiring proper medical testing kits to detect COVID-19” and that it will be spent for the payment of medical testing and analysis fees.
The fund must likewise cover “emergency subsidy in the form of non-food items when there are delays or insufficiencies and to augment existing subsidy programs of the national government to low-income households” within the timeframe when the state of public health emergency is still in effect.
The DOE stipulated then that the disbursement and use of E 1-94 fund must be aligned with the relevant provisions of “Bayanihan to Heal as One” acts, or the emergency powers granted to President Duterte to contain the impact of the health cataclysm.