01/09/2012
I got this text from Butch
Junia last Jan. 5 on the rate reset application of the Manila Electric
Co. (Meralco) before the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC): “The first
hearing on… ERC case 2011-088 is set on Jan. 16 at 2pm. This is the
first hearing on merits after ERC granted provisional authority in Oct.
2011, to take effect July 1, 2012. The rate granted is P1.58/kWh but
consumers led by Naro Lualhati say it’s only P0.90/kWh. ERC up to now
has not addressed consumer opposition. Let us build
awareness/interest/involvement of the public. Also work up media
coverage. Can we also solicit help/appearance of Alan and Bono? Thank
you.”
Not even a week of the New Year has passed and our consumer
crusaders are back on the ball again, raring to engage the “enemies of
the people” in the continuing war to bring public interest and consumer
welfare back to the top of the nation’s priorities. It will be a
daunting task for sure, as we need to overcome the oligarchy and
mainstream media’s mass mind manipulation with “red herring” issues such
as that “Little Girl” and Corona.
Still, we have to doggedly go
at it, lest Meralco has another year of bonanzas courtesy of the
“provisional authority” granted to it by the ERC. We must remember that
this provisional authority is granted even before issues meant to
protect consumers are threshed out, which means that these are almost
never resolved. And in the few times that they are, such as in the
P30-billion Meralco refund case won by consumers in 2003, almost a
decade passes and still the money owed by Meralco doesn’t get to be
entirely paid. Worse, there is even an allegation that the power giant
actually gets money for these payments from its hapless customers — an
issue that remains unresolved to this day.
To refresh our
memories, Mang Naro Lualhati had already questioned in 2010 the
ERC-approved Performance Based Regulation (PBR) rate-setting scheme due
to the fact that “overstated annual capital requirements” actually
become the basis for massively distorted rate translations, which, in
turn, discriminate against residential consumers who have to pay as high
as P4/kWh (in distribution rates) while overwhelmingly favoring
industrial/commercial users who only pay as low as P0.30/kWh — this, as
the ERC-approved rate of over 15 percent is far beyond the legal
reasonable 12-percent limit set by the Electric Power Industry Reform
Act (Epira), among other issues.
Jojo Borja, part owner of power
company, Iligan Light, and now recognized as an “oppositor” by the ERC,
has also charged Meralco with overpricing many components of its service
— from its transformers and electric poles priced five times higher to
its substation installations with an even higher overprice — facts that
the foreign consultants of the ERC and Meralco had even admitted to.
And,
as we transition from the old to the New Year, let us examine the many
economic year-enders that have attempted to trace our economic problems.
I included Ben Diokno’s “2012 will be better but…,” “Economic lessons
from 2011” by Sonny Africa, “Riding out the turbulence” (Malaya
editorial), Raul Fabella’s “Elite capture,” and many others. Yet none
has ever mentioned “the highest power cost in Asia” as a major root of
our country’s economic problems.
I don’t know if they are actually
being deliberate in missing this, but industry leaders, from the
Philippine Chamber of Commerce to the Confederation of Philippine
Exporters and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, to name a
few indicative groups, have already identified the exorbitant power
rates in the country as the major hindrance to encouraging investments
and, hence, industry and employment.
Tragically, BS Aquino III has
not made a single quip on this problem in the past 20 months,
preferring to make a mountain out of an alleged P14-million condo unit
of Corona instead of the P14-billion annual larceny in the power
distribution sector and hundreds of billions in the other power units,
compelling the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. to
borrow and burden taxpayers with P85 billion more in loans for 2012,
after getting P75 billion in 2011.
The current year will usher in
more “magic” for the power sector as four Napocor (National Power Corp.)
power barges (101 to 104) are set to be privatized while a power
shortage is created in Mindanao (see Jan. 5 headline “Rotating outages
to hit south-central Mindanao”). At the blink of an eye, these four
power barges sold off to oligarchs are sure to suddenly come on line at
the opportune time. But wait. There is another momentous event coming
in the power sector that we should brace for.
Little noticed was
the recent creation of a new agency, the “institutionalization of an
independent market operator (IMO) that shall oversee the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market (Wesm)… (assuming) vast powers in the approval
of market rule changes and in the appointment of board memberships.”
What we are about to see is a concentration of power over policies and
prices in a body that the public has no control over, which is likely
beyond what the Epira had ever envisioned.
The members to the
five-man IMO are required not to have any relations with any member of
the Wesm, or the private power companies, at least two years prior; but
that’s a joke since even today many Cabinet officials have
conflicts-of-interest with their former (and prospective) corporate
employers.
What we need is a body with members who are
unquestionably on the side of the consumers and taxpayers — something
that we will never see under the present dispensation.
(Tune in to
Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on
1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at
11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120109com5.html
