CONSUMERS' DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/21-27/2012
The 2012 Mindanao power crisis is estimated to have cost P 60-B loss to economy of Mindanao, and government itself claimed to have lost P 15-B over the years to purchase power to fill in the shortfall every year.
But last May 9 the state-run National Power Corporation completed its fast-tracked rehabilitation of Pulangi IV hydroelectric power plant in Bukidnon, allowing it to generate power to its installed capacity of 250MW from half of that before this latest rehabilitation. The rehabilitation started mid-April at the height of the Mindanao power crisis, a hurried response to the uproar from Mindanaoans who suffered the crippling brownouts and believed the crisis was deliberate. The estimated power shortfall causing the crisis was between 100-150MW, the Pulangi rehab cost only P 7.11-M and restored at least over 100MW. Why didn't Secretary Rene Almendras of the DoE order this done in early 2010 when he took charge of the DoE? Negligence or sabotage? Either way, those responsible must be investigated and prosecuted to set the example; but nothing doing with BS Aquino III.
Estimates of the power shortfall in Mindanao power range from DoE's Asirit on record saying that the shortfall was only 100MW, while other reports have placed it at the high of 200MW. If Pulangi IV alone had been maintained properly at such a minimal cost early on and the rest of the Agus-Pulangi system rehabilitated as well two years earlier, there would not have been any Mindanao power crisis. Instead of the rehabilitation of these existing capacities the BS Aquino III, its DoE officials and politicians such as Sen. Serge Osmeña the past two years have been repeatedly claiming instead that a power crisis existed in Mindanao which can only be solved by installing new coal-fired and other power plants. Senator Angara, author of the RE (Renewable Energy) law in turn has repeatedly claimed that solar and wind power for Mindanao is the answer, hiding the fact that his RE law charges P 20/kWh for solar and wind generated power to hydro's P 2/kWh.
Each and every politician and DoE and ERC official have a lobbyist's angle: Serge Osmeña has schemed for the privatization of Agus-Pulangi and other hydro-resources of Mindanao to the oligarchs which include his Lopez kin as well as the Aboitizes, Alcantaras, and Ayalas. The DoE officials are with the coal-power lobby, while Angara is with the RE lobby which include the foreign energy companies in partnership with the usual suspects – Ayala, Aboitiz, Lopez et al who are already in RE projects. What is made clear from these historical facts in the power sector is that national policy on this matter has been ruled by lobby interests working through the entire polical power structure. Not a single of the officials act with responsibility and concern for the genuine interest of the people of Mindanao and the nation as a whole leading to the situation today that has produced the "highest power cost in Asia" and devastated Philippine industry and quality-of-life.
Our recent program on Destiny Cable channel 8, GNN show featured Mr. Jojo Borja of Iligan Light and Power, and Atty. Homobono Adaza, to report to the nation how the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) tired again to pull a fast one on the anti-Power Plunder advocates and the public. They reported how notices of a crucial ERC hearing on the case of the MAP (Maximum Allowable Price) petition of Meralco, arrived on a Sunday at the legal counsel, Adaza's residence a day before the hearing and on the Friday before the Monday hearing for the petitioner Borja. Suffice it to say that the Meralco petition for MAP was postpone again, saving the 6-million Meralco consumers from an early approval of a very onerous power rate base that is 100% over what Meralco should be charging for its distribution rate. The present rate is based on what Borja proves are Meralco equipment overpricing as high as 900%.
Mang Naro Lualhati, octogenarian consumer activist laid the basis for the case that Borja and Adaza are locking horns with Meralco over at the Court of Appeals, hence ERC should not have tried to move to resolve Meralco's petition in its sala. Lualhati, on his end, has filed a Motion for Reconsideration on ERC's dismissal of his opposition to Meralco's MAP of around P 1.60/kWh which according to the accountant-oppositor Lualhati should only be P 0.90/kWh and Jojo Borja provided solid evidence - facts, figures and documents – proving Lualhati's charges. If Lualhati, Borja et al win their epic struggle Meralco customers can win as much as 50% of the distribution charges it pays, and certainly more if other issues such as the PBR and its perks' 17% are eventually defeated and overturned to go back to the RORB rate system's 12% rate base.
During our GNN program Borja highlighted another fact that should make everybody stop and take seriously the predatory power victimization of millions of Filipinos, informing us: "To this day, Iligan Light and Power (ILPI) is charging only P 5.50/kWh retail on a customer base of 60,000 electricity connections while Meralco is charging P 11 to P12 (fluctuates with monthly changes) on a customer base of 6-Million electricity connections." Whatever happened to the principle of "economies-of-scale" where the bigger the market and operation of an enterprise the lower its prices for products and services could and should be?
(Tune in to 1098AM, DWAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
