11 coops help Samelco resume its operations

CATBALOGAN CITY, Philippines — All of the 11 power cooperatives in Eastern Visayas came to the rescue of Samar Electric Cooperative 2 (Samelco 2), which was razed by fire on Sunday, to immediately recover and set-up a temporary operations center.

The power cooperatives, represented by their respective managers and directors, brought in computer equipment, chairs and cash that enabled the fire-razed Samelco 2 to resume operations in a chapel last Tuesday, or one day after a fire gutted its main administration building, and its annex and storage buildings.

Samelco 2 spokesman Dickson Bernales told The FREEMAN the consortium of power coops in the region also offered a loan, with only 3.75 percent annual interest, so that the ill-fated cooperative could immediately construct a new building.

The National Electrification Administration also relayed a loan offer to Samelco 2 with the same annual interest.

Bernales, however, clarified that the loan offers would still be discussed by the Samelco 2 board of directors.

Samelco 2, based in Paranas town of Samar, was gutted by a fire at 9:25 a.m. last Sunday, allegedly caused by one if its two cabinet-type air conditioning units. The fire razed Samelco 2’s entire administration building, which housed all equipment, records and transactions of the cooperative.

The fire also gutted down the storage building and its annex building, but Samelco 2’s power supply area was spared, thus no major power outage was experienced by its consumers.

Bernales narrated to The FREEMAN: “It was a Sunday, but three of our billing employees went overtime to work on pending transactions. They arrived at about 8:45 a.m. and switched on two of the ACs, but after a while they smelled a burning rubber so went to look for its source and notice that one of the ACs was emitting smoke. Based on their account, they immediately turn the unit off but suddenly a fire broke out from the AC unit, prompting them to immediately call the fire bureau.”

Due to the presence of papers in the room and the very humid atmosphere at the time, the fire quickly spread and gutted the building, including the adjacent structures, said Bernales.

The fire bureau was still conducting its own investigation, and that no damage estimate yet was released as of press time, but Bernales said the entire Samelco 2 compound was covered by an insurance policy. The determination of the amount of damage, however, will be up to the insurance company, he said.

“As far as billing records are concerned, they are OK because we have an external backup data as of Friday last week, and the towns affected are from Jiabong to Calbiga only,” said Bernales.

“We can’t determine yet how the incident will affect our accounting data, but please be assured that the management is now trying to retrieve everything to put things up again,” he added. (FREEMAN)