A large part of Catanduanes should have been literally in darkness in the evening of Jan. 4, 2026, as six diesel gensets of the Sunwest Water & Electricity Co. (SUWECO) was supposed to run out of fuel at 6 PM that day.
For two days, according to sources, no fuel deliveries had been made by its supplier, Unioil, to the Marinawa Diesel Power Plant through its local hauler, Powerzone Petroleum Products Corp.
A day earlier, the fuel inventory at the Marinawa 1 DPP stood at just 2 days, with Marinawa 2 DPP at four days and Viga DPP at 13 days.
If all three plants, as well as the EPSA gensets, are running at the same time, they consume about 53,000 liters of diesel per day.
On Dec. 24, this column stated that the Court of Appeals had lifted the freeze order on the operating accounts of SUWECO and its sister company in Tablas Island, Romblon, with certain conditions.
It turns out that one of the conditions was the submission of a bond equal to the value of the cash contained in the frozen accounts of the company whose majority owner is former Ako Bicol Partylist representative and House Appropriations Chairman Elizaldy Co.
With Co, SUWECO president Ronald Ang and board directors all abroad, apparently there was an issue as to who would be authorized to comply with the court’s demand or sign any agreement.
Worse, the issuing bank cancelled the letter of credit that would guarantee SUWECO’s payment for fuel delivered by Unioil, forcing the latter to demand prepayment of the fuel orders.
Last-minute negotiations led to the delivery of 48,000 liters of diesel in the evening of Jan. 2 and then the following morning, preventing what could have been a five-hour brownout in at least two feeders of the Catanduanes grid.
For two weeks now, both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Electrification Administration (NEA) had been monitoring the situation in Catanduanes and Tablas.
Last Dec. 30, DOE Sec. Sharon Garin directed the two Sunwest companies to ensure adequate fuel inventories at both islands to ensure full operation of their power plants and gave them until Monday to submit a work plan on its compliance with the court order.
SUWECO and STEC, through a common counsel, submitted its timeline, with compliance with the bond requirement set this Jan. 7, 2026.
How it will be able to pay for the bond or security to be posted with the appeals court, when all its cash is apparently deposited in the frozen accounts, is the big question.
Will the court allow the companies to use the cash in the frozen accounts to pay the bond that is supposed to be equal in value to the total amounts in the same accounts?
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Another issue is its capability, financial or otherwise, to bid for the 24-megawatt power contract of FICELCO that was originally set last Dec. 24, 2025.
With its top management out of the country and its accounts under court scrutiny even if the freeze order is lifted, its bid could be in jeopardy assuming the CSP is restarted soon with NEA’s go-signal..
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GROUND FOR DIVORCE. A guy called up his lawyer to tell him he was suing for divorce, and the lawyer inquired as to his grounds for the suit.
“Can you believe my wife says I’m a lousy lover?” sputtered the husband.
“That’s why you’re suing?” asked the lawyer.
“Of course not. I’m suing because she knows the difference.”