MALASIQUI, Pangasinan — The Central Pangasinan Electric Cooperative Inc. (Cenpelco) will waive the billing of its member-consumers whose electric consumption is below 25 kilowatt-hours (kWh) this month of April.
In an interview Monday, Cenpelco general manager engineer Rodrigo Corpuz said this is a move of almost all the electric cooperatives in the country in order to ease the burden of their consumers who belong to the marginalized sector amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis.
“We call this Pantawid Liwanag Program for the lifeline consumers. They are usually indigents using only one to three bulbs in their homes thus consuming only below 25 kWh. We wanted to help them as they are the most affected in this crisis,” he said.
He added there are 42,000 households under lifeline consumers, but Cenpelco will waive the billing of only those who will utilize below 25 kWh this month.
Meanwhile, Corpuz said the electric bill of the consumers is expected to increase due to the enforced enhanced community quarantine.
“But in connection with the advisory of the Department of Energy as we are all affected by the crisis, we will allow staggered payment of March and April billing starting May to August this year without any interest or surcharges,” he said.
Cenpelco has a total of 230,000 consumers in 14 towns and one city in the province. (PNA)
