By Neil D. Lopido

TACLOBAN CITY (3 October) -- Four Electric Cooperatives in Eastern Visayas has already achieved 100 percent energization as of July 31, 2006 according to Evangeline Paran, Head of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) during the opening ceremony of the 17th National Statistics Month (NSM) held at the NEDA regional office yesterday.

Among the 11 electric cooperatives in Region 8, Leyte Electric Cooperatives (LEYECO) II, III & V in Leyte and Biliran Electric Cooperative (BILECO) in Biliran are now fully energized covering a potential barangays of 196, 285, 416, and 132, respectively.

At the regional level, the status of energization has attained 90.8 percent which translates to about 3,984 barangays energized out of the 4,390 total potential barangays, Paran said.

At the provincial level, Biliran achieved 100 percent energization while Leyte and Southern Leyte realized 99.5 and 96.6 percent, respectively. All the Samar provinces lagged behind due to problem of inaccessibility of energy from the source of many barangays located in far-flung places and island municipalities, the NSCB regional chief further said.

Paran revealed also in her energy statistics updates that LEYECO V, where Ormoc City is included, was also noted to have registered the highest number of service connections followed by SOLECO in Southern Leyte while BILECO in Biliran got the lowest number of service connections.

On the other hand, Paran disclosed that the regional center of Tacloban City and nearby towns being served by LEYECO II, which accounts for the biggest share of 25.8 percent of the total power distributed in the region, consistently posted the cheapest electricity rate at P4.90 and P5.43 per kilowatt-hour (KWH) in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

Though Biliran is already fully energized, the electricity in the province remains the most expensive at P6.19 and P6.80 in 2004 and 2005, respectively due to low consumption rate resulting from lack of industries and commercial establishments accompanied by low population in the province, Paran explained.

Moreover, Paran said that the region's system rate or the selling price of power from the electric cooperatives to consumers was registered at P5.88 per KWH in 2005. This is higher by P0.56 over the P5.32 recorded in 2004. All electric cooperatives registered increases, with Eastern Samar Electric Cooperative (ESAMELCO) recording the highest at P1.01.