Gloria is the calamity

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
8/3/2007



It is the people that need to take into its hands emergency power to remove Gloria and not Gloria to ask for emergency powers for the so-called “drought”. There is no “national” drought calamity; regional drought may be true in a few and very limited areas, but it is not national in extent and will most likely resolve itself in the coming few weeks. The real calamity in the country today is the brutal and vicious automatic power rate hikes Meralco, the Lopezes and other IPPs are imposing with impunity liberty which Gloria endorsed through the JCPC, DOE and ERC approvals.

The 20% sudden increase of power rates without the benefit of public hearing and scrutiny of Meralco’s claims of billions supposed “un-recovered” costs is forcing businesses to close down, lay off workers, and families to cutback on essentials on food, education and health; households are shutting down refrigerators and buying less in their supermarket trips. While the public suffers Meralco has three petitions pending at the ERC: increase of reconnection fee from P 20 to P 108.00; increase of surcharge for late payments; TOU (time of use) rates with new meter charges.

Already the highest power cost in Asia, three times as much as countries like China and Thailand, Meralco is pushing even higher. To fend off the backlash Lopez spokesman Elpi Cuna have resorted to outright fudging and disinformation. For instance, the infamous claim of Cuna on radio that the Lopez IPPs Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo are lower than Napocor rates, but Cuna quoted their 2007 system of non-peak versus NPC’s peak rates. It was a clearly a disguised lie that Cuna made, misrepresenting apples for oranges that the public would not be able to see without complete information.

Before Meralco applied these peak and non-peak rates (which has not been explained to the public) we can look at the Average Generation Rate in our Meralco billings and compare them to Napocor’s Effective Selling rate in the official records. From 2003 to 2005 (available records) its show the Meralco billing higher than Napocor selling rate by an average of P 1/kwh, leading to the only possible conclusion – Meralco’s IPPs bring up the average generation rate Meralco charges the consumers. Now they are deliberately confusing the public with the off-peak and peak rate shell game.

Every discussion on the power rates threatens to drown the layman in a sea of confusing figures, rule and regulation. This is why the public must ask Gloria, her legislators, regulators and business cohorts the simplest of question: why is the Philippines’ power rates the highest in Asia since afer Edsa Dos until today, and getting worse. The next simple question is: what are you doing to bring the Philippines’ power rates to the reasonable and average rate prevalent in Asia – to keep our industries and our standard of living competitive and comparable to the rest?

It is the responsibility, obligation, duty and paramount task of those who have assumed the powers of government and those running the power industry to answer the public these basic questions. It is not the obligation of the Filipino people and electricity consumers to suffer for the benefit of Gloria and the power companies. Gloria’s SONA obviously recognizes the electric power rates problem as a major one, that’s why she spoke of “amending the EPIRA” on the “open access”– but treating it as a legislative issue is intended to exhaust the last two minutes with a long dribble.

Nasecore, FDC and this columnist have centered the quick solution on the Energy Regulatory Commission. It has the powers and the regulatory guidelines to use to immediate cut electricity rates and stop Meralco, the IPPs and the Lopez’s criminal abuse. Ilagan cites “Section 23 of the Electric Power Industry reform Act which mandates distribution utilities to source the least cost supply of electricity, and the Franchise provision of Meralco under Section 4, Responsibility to the Public, which states that ‘[t]he grantee shall supply electricity to its captive market in the least cost manner.’ ”

The present ERC commissioners, especially its chief Albano should be sent packing posthaste because they have not made Meralco source power from the cheapest sources and allowed the Lopezes to keep buying from its own more exhorbitant IPPs. Because Lopez IPPs are more expensive their “costs” to be recovered is higher; with the “automatic recovery” they literally have a license to raise rates as much as they want or can get away with. All past overpriced purchases of Meralco can then be refunded to the public in terms of immediate rate cuts.

So many other measures can be taken by the ERC with the right people: meter and connection deposits can be used for capital expenditure instead of charging consumers; meter reading, systems loss, missionary charges can be immediately reversed. Who to replace Albano et al? Take Pete Ilagan of Nasecore or Princess Nemenzo of FDC, appoint them to the ERC on the condition that power rates be brought down at least 30% in three months or they get no salary and get fired after that. Get new people to do it. I dare Gloria to do this now. If Pete or Princess fail I will stop this column for the rest of my life.

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