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‘PUC ignoring request, inquiries of House panel’
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Posted on May 21 2009
The chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Tourism, Rep. Joseph Reyes, is disappointed with the Public Utilities Commission for stubbornly ignoring his committee’s request and inquiries dating back to December last year.
Reyes said his committee had already sent three letters to the commission and all have yet to be answered. The PUC is chaired by lawyer Viola Alepuyo.
The lawmaker made his initial request on Dec. 2, 2008, for the commission to require the only cable television provider on island, KMCV, to consider providing rebates and adjustments to consumers who have paid their monthly fees but did not actually receive any services because of frequent power outages.
Reyes told the commission that the cable provider needs to be fair to everyone and must rebate or provide credit adjustments to each customer’s monthly billing for all the hours that MCV was unable to provide any service.
On Feb. 4, 2009, Reyes’ office sent another letter to the commission, following up on his inquiry and adding that consumers whose appliances were damaged by the frequent power outages must also be compensated by the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.
In that letter, he disclosed that a survey conducted by his office showed that some 56 respondents placed the value of their losses at $63,395. The lawmaker provided the PUC a copy of the “Broken Appliance Log Sheet” for the commission’s inspection.
“I asked that your committee look into this matter and obligate CUC to compensate the victims for their losses before any lawsuit is initiated,” Reyes told the PUC chair.
The committee chairman also asked for a dialogue with CUC about the disruption of television broadcasting services due to CUC’s power outages throughout 2008.
“Our consumers deserve to receive credit adjustments or refunds on their cable television bills from both CUC and MCV for the hours that they were deprived of the service,” he added.
On May 21, another follow-up letter was sent by Reyes’ office. Still no response.
Reyes said PUC must at least inform him if the issues raised are not part of its jurisdictions and responsibilities.
