Embattled and dismissed Central Negros Electric Cooperative general manager Sulpicio Lagarde Jr. is requesting the Energy Regulatory Commission to immediately suspend temporarily the implementation of the Filinvest Development Corporation Utilities Inc. contract and renegotiate its onerous provisions.

He also asked ERC to issue show cause order to FDCUI why it is allegedly billing Ceneco an average generation rate of P7.4962kWh from January to July 2015, in excess of P4.8766 kWh for the energy delivered, in violation of the provisional authority granted.

In his manifestation and urgent petition for suspension and review of the FDCIU provisional authority granted, Lagarde asked ERC to also issue a show-cause order to Ceneco president Arnel Lapore for his alleged defiance of the ERC direct order to provide him with the pertinent documents pertaining to the contract of FDCUI.

Lagarde also asked ERC to require Ceneco to submit average hourly WESM prices and sell back volume and amount during off peak and during peak hours, except weekends and holidays from January 2014 onwards.

Filinvest filed a petition with ERC for the approval of the contract and Lagarde intervened.

However, ERC issued a provisional authority for the implementation of the contract last February.

Lapore had said that if the ERC, in its initial appreciation of the contract, had found it anomalous, it would never have issued a provisional authority.

Lagarde claimed that the power supply contracts signed by Lapore with Filinvest for 20MW last year, on top of the additional 24MW with Kepco earlier, are improper.

These contracts are in excess of what the cooperative needs. Worse, the consumers are made to pay the cost of unused power that is worth millions per month, he said.

Lapore said that if Lagarde's claims are true, the electricity rate could have surged already. The rate is still within the regulated range, he said.*CGS

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