Group pushes ILECO 1, MORE Power joint venture

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

A regional consumer organization is urging the Iloilo 1 Electric Cooperative (ILECO 1) to pursue a joint venture agreement with MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) instead of competing for customers once a pending congressional bill takes effect.

Bantay ng Bayan-101 (BNB-101), also known as the Movement of Iloilo Consumers for Better Electric Service, made the appeal on behalf of residents of the seven municipalities of Iloilo’s 1st District: Guimbal, Igbaras, Tubungan, Oton, Tigbauan, Miag-ao and San Joaquin.

House Bill 7647, filed by Rep. Janette Garin, would allow MORE Power to expand its coverage from Iloilo City into the 1st District.

The bill has passed the House of Representatives and could also pass the Senate, BNB-101 said, citing a June 13, 2025, Supreme Court decision that upheld the legality of MORE Power’s franchise expansion beyond Iloilo City.

Raul Cordova, BNB-101 regional director, and Warren Briones, barangay chairman of Barangay Buyuan in Tigbauan town and BNB-101 spokesperson for the 1st District, discussed the proposal in a radio talk show aired on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo last July 5.

“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 are suggesting a better alternative,”  Cordova told the radio program.

Briones said he consulted residents of Buyuan and other barangays before speaking to the media.

“Most member-consumers of the cooperative would shift to MORE Power for want of better services. Imagine what would happen if we opt to compete and later give up when the power lines of the competitor would have emerged? It would be too late to propose a joint venture,” he said.

MORE Power’s main investor is business mogul Enrique K. Razon, the richest Filipino, with a net worth of USD 16.5 billion, according to the Forbes World’s Billionaires List.

ILECO 1 has already lost some member-consumers, including malls and other large business establishments, to MORE Power in the towns of Pavia and Sta. Barbara, where MORE Power’s posts have been erected.

Of the 15 towns still served by ILECO 1, eight are in the 2nd District: Pavia, Sta. Barbara, Alimodian, Cabatuan, Leganes, Leon, Maasin and San Miguel.

Cordova cited the 2024 joint venture between MORE Power and the then financially struggling Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) as a model for the proposed ILECO 1 partnership.

“If the joint venture with CENECO worked, why not with ILECO?” Cordova asked.

Cordova’s late brother, Roy Cordova, was president of the CENECO board of directors and lived to see the cooperative replaced by Negros Electric and Power Corp. (NEPC), also known as Negros Power.

Negros Power’s customer base grew from 177,737 in August 2024 to almost 300,000 today, according to BNB-101.

“The CENECO employees who chose to retire,” Cordova’s brother had told him, “were well compensated. Most of them were retained by Negros Power.”

A joint venture, according to BNB-101, would spare ILECO 1 concerns over its survival and save MORE Power the cost and time of installing new power lines in the district.

BNB-101 said it initiated the push and has forwarded sectoral resolutions supporting the proposed joint venture to local government units.

Farmers’, fisherfolk’s, senior citizens’, persons-with-disability and other sectoral associations in the seven 1st District towns, as well as in Alimodian, Cabatuan, Leganes, Leon, Maasin, Pavia and Sta. Barbara, passed such resolutions between May 2 and May 25, 2026.

Some LGUs, particularly in the 1st District and in Pavia, have already passed their own resolutions echoing the sectoral groups’ appeal, BNB-101 said.