NORMAL POWER SUPPLY RETURNS TO MERALCO FRANCHISE AREA
LESS THAN 24 HOURS AFTER FRANK BATTERS METRO AND LUZON

June 23, 2008

The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) today said that despite the severe challenges it faced, it was able to normalize power back in its entire franchise area less than a day after Typhoon Frank caused havoc in Metro Manila and Luzon.

Meralco First Vice President and Customer Retail Services Head Roberto R. Almazora gave all Meralco customers the assurance that the power company is speeding up the restoration work of the few remaining areas still without electricity and is continuously clearing the lines of debris and other unsafe obstructions before putting power back to ensure public safety.

As of 8:00 am, only 1.8% or 12 out of 678 major distribution circuits are still out. This includes Meralco’s Botocan and San Miguel Substations that are still without power due to the outage of TransCo lines. The highest recorded circuit outage level was placed at 46% at 5:00am yesterday.

Areas that still have no electricity include the following: The whole town of San Miguel in Bulacan; Bgy. Kalawakan in Dona Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan; Bgy. Buhol na Mangga in San Ildefonso, Bulacan; portion of Meralco Road, Malaya Road and Tanay-Pilillia-Jala-Jala Provincial Road; Congressional Model Subdivision, Pag-Asa Homesite and Brixtonville Subd. in Camarin, Caloocan City; Shelterville-I Subd., NHA Tala Sites IV, IX and X in Bagong Silang, Caloocan. There are still, however, some isolated areas which may not have power due to local troubles.

“Our linemen and engineers have been working nonstop since the wake of the typhoon yesterday to be able to restore power to affected areas. Customers may call Meralco Call Center’s hotline 16211 or instead text their concerns to 0917-5592824 or 0920-9292824,” Almazora said.

For updates on the power situation, Almazora said customers can tune in to the different public service AM radio stations such as DZMM, DZRH, DZBB, DZXL, etc. In a related development, Meralco also said that it will conduct relief operations in Bulacan and Cavite as part of its efforts to help the typhoon victims.