ILOILO City – Recognizing its vital role in the upcoming May 2022 elections, MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) assured the Commission on Elections (Comelec) here of sufficient and uninterrupted power supply.
“This is really a commitment from our side…We will do our best,” said MORE Power president Roel Castro.
Yesterday, the city’s sole power distributor represented by Castro and its Network Operations deputy head Engineer Bernard Bailey del Castillo inked a memorandum of agreement with the City Comelec represented by Election Officer IV Atty. Reinier Layson sealing a partnership to ensure smooth elections.
“We cannot afford to have power interruptions during the campaign period, during the election itself and until the election is over…We are already doing some preliminary work to ensure that the election runs smoothly and without any glitch when it comes to the provision of electricity,” said Castro after the MOA signing.
This is the second partnership between MORE Power and the City Comelec. The first was during the voters’ registration period,
Layson said this partnership is the first of its kind in the country.
“I’ve been in Comelec for so long, I never heard of a city election office or any field office of the Comelec which had a partnership with an electricity provider,” said Layson.
Castro also offered to the City Comelec MORE Power’s delivery service should the latter have election-related education and information materials to be delivered to the voters.
“We deliver close to 85, 000 electric bills/statement of accounts anyway. We can include election-related education and information materials in our delivery,” said Castro.
For his part, Del Castillo said among the major preparations MORE Power is doing now is checking for possible weak points or hotspots from power substations to high-voltage lines.
“All our efforts starting this December are geared towards reliability…,” said Del Castillo. “We check even the smallest details…As to power quality, we will also do tests.”
According to Layson, voting will start at 6 a.m. and will end at 7 p.m. He thus stressed the importance of having well-illuminated voting precincts./PN