Leyte folk switch to prepaid electricity
By Joey A. Gabieta
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:33:00 08/30/2008
TACLOBAN CITY – Syvette Dacuyan used to spend at least P1,000 for electricity but since she shifted to the prepaid mode, she just spends an average of P800 per month.
Since then, Dacuyan said she could go on vacation for days or even months without paying for the electricity that she had not consumed.
Dacuyan is among those who have opted for a prepaid account with the Leyte II Electric Cooperative (Leyeco II) availed of by more than a thousand consumers within the cooperative’s coverage area in Tacloban City, and the towns of Babatngon and Palo.
“The prepaid metering is convenient for me. I travel a lot. Unlike the conventional meter, you will not be bothered with the thought that you will still pay the monthly minimum though you did not consume any electricity,” said Dacuyan, a freelance news writer.
All she has to do is switch off the meter to stop the power service before leaving her home.
Dacuyan is one of the residents of a subdivision in the city where 240 residents chose the prepaid metering, said subdivision project accountant Edgar Babon.
Dacuyan, who has a 3-year-old son, said she bought P100 worth of electricity, which has an equivalent of 17.8 kilowatts per hour and good for one-week consumption. Aside from several energy-saving light bulbs, she said she also uses a refrigerator, a computer, a flat iron and electric fans.
“The prepaid system teaches us to be conscious of our electricity consumption,” Dacuyan noted.
In contrast, Belen Morante, a government worker whose residence use postpaid metering, said she has to set aside more than P1,000 for their monthly power consumption.
Her family of seven people has a television, a computer, refrigerator, three electric fans, rice cooker, flat iron, light bulbs and fluorescent lamp.
The prepaid metering system is not new in this city of over 200,000 people, said Hector de Veyra, Leyeco II internal auditor.
He said Leyeco II introduced the system in 1999 as part of its effort to address its huge systems loss of tens of millions of pesos.
Just last year, the utility lost “unaccounted kilowatts” due to pilferage amounting to P11 million, he pointed out.
Since the system was introduced among its consumers in 2000, those using the prepaid system have reached 1,800, De Veyra said.
He said the number of prepaid customers remained lower than the postpaid ones that number 35,000 as of this month.
Still, Leyeco II considered the program, which is the first of its kind in the country, a success, De Veyra said.
“We don’t make it mandatory among our members but we offer it to them as an option to the conventional system or the billing system,” he said.
Buying the electricity under this system is just like buying a “load” for one’s cellular phone.
A consumer goes to the Leyeco II office and pays for an electric load of at least P100. Leyeco II gives the consumer a credit transfer voucher, which has 16 digits.
The consumer then enters the numbers into the meter’s keypad. The service is open 24 hours Mondays through Sundays.
A consumer has to shell out P7,000 for the gadgets, keypad and a meter reader imported from South Africa, the first country in the world to introduce the system, De Veyra said.
This is higher than that of the conventional meter at P5,000, which could be paid on installment basis.
The prepaid system also helps reduce the workload of their meter readers since they no longer have to read the meters, De Veyra said.
“And of course, we have a 100-percent collection. It is actually cheaper and economical (for both the cooperative and the consumers),” he said.
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