This past Thursday I attended an event marking the formal approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) of the implementation of Xen Energy System’s Kuryentxt Prepaid Electricity service for customers of the Boheco II and Batelec I electric cooperatives in Bohol and Batangas. Regular readers of this column will recognize the prepaid electric concept as a favorite subject, but for those who are unfamiliar with it, the Kuryentxt service is an easy way for customers to manage their electric bills on a “pay as you go” basis, and has been in place on a limited scale in a number of locations around the country. The event earlier this week was to announce the ERC’s final approval of the system; until now, the regulator’s approval has had a “provisional” status.
The prepaid electric service, or specifically, Xen Energy’s Kuryentxt system (the scheme remains a distant wish for the long-suffering customers of the Manila Electric Co., the nation’s largest and most expensive distributor of electricity), is just one of several ambitious, positive growth developments that have been introduced in the past couple of years. While we criticize the Aquino administration and its agencies for badly managing the economy—or perhaps more accurately, not managing it at all—it would be a disservice to the public and to the innovative few not to acknowledge the real or potential advances that are being made, despite the unfavorable and in some ways hostile business regulatory environment that characterizes the Aquino term.