Senator Sherwin Gatchalian 

A complete takeover of the Palawan Electric Cooperative (PALECO) by the National Electrification Administration (NEA) may be what's needed to alleviate the suffering of the province's residents. 

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian floated this on Saturday, Feb. 3 amid continued power outages in Palawan as well as the electric cooperative's (EC) apparent inability to address the situation. 

“PALECO cannot fulfill its mandate of supplying sufficient and affordable electricity to Palawan, then maybe the responsibility of providing power in the province is better off in the hands of NEA,” said Gatchalian. 

The senator effectively backed the proposal of consumer group Palawan Electric Member-Consumer-Owners (PEMCO) for NEA to take over the management of the EC. 

NEA last week assigned lawyer Ivan Zamora, Department Manager at the company’s Management and Consultancy Services Office (MCSO), to be the Project Supervisor to oversee the operations of PALECO. 

Latest NEA records show that in terms of System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) performance, PALECO is not compliant with the reliability standards of 20 occurrences per year. Unplanned interruptions that are within the control of distribution utilities reached 27.34 in 2022 and 21.878 in 2023, according to Gatchalian. 

The Senate Committee on Energy vice chairma noted that in terms of power quality, PALECO is also not compliant with the standards set by the Philippine Distribution Code. 

“Malaking dagok sa buhay ng ating mga kababayan sa Palawan ang palagiang brownout. Dapat maglatag na ng pangmatagalang solusyon ang NEA at Department of Energy (DOE) sa lalong madaling panahon para sa kapakanan ng mga konsyumer,” said the lawmaker, 

(The frequent brownouts are a huge setback to our countrymen in Palawan. The NEA and DOE must formulate a long-term solution as soon as possible for the benefit of the consumers.) 

PALECO is currently categorized as AA and classified as Yellow EC. In December 2018, NEA also took over the management of PALECO amid frequent power outages during that time. 

An AAA rating is the highest score given by the NEA to ECs. It indicates full compliance by power distribution utilities on all parameters, with D being the lowest. 

ECs classified as Yellow means they do not comply with four or more of the three key performance standards and parameters of NEA’s guidelines.