Alternative to Garin’s MORE Power expansion bill

AS I see it, there may no longer be a need to turn House Bill No. 7647 into law.

Principally authored by Rep. Janette L. Garin (1^st Dist, Iloilo), it seeks to expand the congressional franchise of MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) to all seven municipalities in her district of Iloilo – Oton, Tigbauan, Guimbal, Miag-ao, Igbaras, Tubungan and San Joaquin.

Garin filed the bill on February 9, 2026. It passed the House of Representatives’ third and final reading on March 3, 2026, and likewise in the Senate on September 28, 2026.

Will Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. sign it into law?

Not so fast, please. There’s a proposed alternative arrangement between MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) and Iloilo I Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ILECO 1) that would benefit the two utilities and their customers as well.

That proposal as presented by MORE Power president Roel Castro to ILECO 1 is for both distribution utilities to ink a joint venture agreement.

Otherwise, competition between the two would jeopardize the viability of ILECO 1, some of whose customers would certainly try the newcomer.

In fact, many of the cooperative’s big customers in Pavia, Iloilo – of the 15 towns and one highly-urbanized city covered by an earlier franchise expansion outside Iloilo City – have already shifted to MORE Power, including the Pavia municipal government, the New Panay Agri-Ventures Development Inc., GT Mall, and the Commission on Population and Development Region VI (CPD VI).

In San Miguel, Iloilo, Egger Poultry Farm Inc. stands out as the first commercial establishment there to transfer to MORE Power.

The more the customers band together under the proposed joint venture, the better are the chances of keeping power rates lower than the national average because of the principle called “economies of scale”: The more the customers, the cheaper a product or service becomes.

MORE Power’s residential rate in October was PHP 14.73 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), below the PHP 15 to PHP 17/kWh charged by other distribution utilities.

At the moment, MORE Power has recorded more than 110,000 customers or almost double the 62,000 customers it had when it took over Panay Electric Co. (PECO) as sole power distributor in Iloilo City in 2020.

The passage of Republic Act 11918, from a bill filed by then-2nd District Rep. Michael Gorriceta and 4th District Rep. Braeden John Biron, extended MORE Power’s franchise to operate in Passi City and 15 municipalities in Iloilo’s 2nd and 4th districts. This would result in gradual competition – since it would take years to build poles and power lines — with ILECO 1 and 2.

It would be in line with a Supreme Court (SC) decision dated June 13, 2025, which upheld the legality of MORE Power’s franchise expansion beyond Iloilo City.

Because of that, a consumer known as Bantay ng Bayan-101 fears that if MORE Power further expands to the seven municipalities of the 1^st District, ILECO 1 might not survive the competition.  Therefore, they would rather go for a MORE-ILECO 1 joint venture, arguing that such partnership would protect the cooperative from folding under pressure.

In an interview with this writer, BNB-101 regional director Raul Cordova said, “We used to look forward to competition between the cooperative and the private power distributor. Competition would grant energy consumers the freedom of choice. But now we realize that a joint venture would be better.”

As proof, the joint venture between MORE Power and the Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) in Bacolod City led to the creation of Negros Electric and Power Corp. (a.k.a. NEPC or Negros Power).

According to Ma. Cecilia C. Pe, Negros Power’s vice-president for customer relations, the partnership has grown by leaps and bounds — from 177,737 customers in August 2024 to 254,000-plus today.