Member-consumers of Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative are enraged that more power outages will be done soon because the firm failed to pay its half a billion debt to the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation.
The longer blackouts imposed lately going into the supposed rainy season has raised anxiety to a wider sector of business, especially in this city that has not been spared anymore of the energy crisis creeping across Mindanao.
“Since the start of power blackouts here, we have less customers because they prefer to go to internet cafés in malls where there are power generators,” lamented businesswoman Rhodora Khadil.
Small sari-sari store and carinderia owners here scored as “anti-poor” policy the new Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) memorandum requiring them to file income tax returns and to issue receipts to customers.
“The Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission are useless when it comes to defending the interests and welfare of the Filipino people. In fact, these government agencies are merely being used by power companies to defend their rate hikes,” the militant group, Bayan, said in a statement emailed to news organizations.