Offices in the dark as Zamboanga del Sur town fails to pay electric bills

Zamboanga del Sur map. INQUIRER FILES

TAMBULIG, ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR — As the local government here opens its doors on Monday, 12 offices were literally in the dark as their electricity had been cut off due to the town’s failure to pay its electric bills.

As a stop-gap measure, Mayor Charlotte Dumanjug-Panal had asked the Zamboanga del Sur 1 Electric Cooperative (Zamsureco 1) to temporarily connect the offices, especially the local police and the disaster body, to the power line of the municipal hall so they could continue on their regular operations.

To avoid distribution overload, all offices could not make use of their air conditioning units, limiting electricity use only for computers and lights.

The mayor blamed the sorry situation on the municipal council, whose members allegedly delayed the passing of the proposed supplemental budget that would have given the local government enough finances to settle the electric bills with the Zamsureco 1.

Zamsureco linemen on June 25 had cut the electric connection of the 12 offices that included the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), the Water Services Office, and the municipal police station which still had an unpaid bills amounting to P145,000.

Panal said they received the notice of disconnection from the electric cooperative on June 14.

According to the Mayor, they experienced these hitches because the P6.5-million supplemental budget remained pending at the municipal council. The proposed measure submitted on May 10 was supposed to cover electricity payments of local government offices, wages of contractual workers, and other operational expenditures of various frontline offices.

Speaking through the provincial information office, municipal Councilor David Doong Sr., chair of the committee on finance, said part of the proposed measure was still undergoing scrutiny, and they were asking for supporting documents, which were not yet provided.

But Francois Yitzhak Cagoco, municipal administrator, said they always complied with the requests for documents by the councilors but each time after they complied with one request, another request came up after a week.

Cagoco said he wondered when the seemingly perpetual request for documents would end. He said it had already dragged on for more than a month.

Panal said she was having a hard time with the municipal councilors as they were not politically aligned. On Monday, July 1, the regional office of the Department of the Interior and Local Government called the town mayor and the councilors for a dialog.

If the supplemental funds would not be made available soonest, Panal worried that the municipal hall’s power line would also be cut off, affecting the entire municipal government compound and all street lights.