01/20/2012
It is not just the country’s
Chief Justice (CJ) on trial but the entire social and political
establishment of the Philippines. Last Monday, two hearings of note were
held. One involved Supreme Court (SC) CJ Renato Corona, while the
other, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the issues before it.
Amid
a hodgepodge of allegations of betrayal of public trust, the Corona
impeachment trial may well unearth tens of millions of pesos of
anomalies in material terms. But, as the latter speaks of P30 billion to
P50 billion in direct annual losses to the pockets of every Filipino
for the last seven years and the years to come, it certainly constitutes
more of a lasting damage to the life of the nation’s economy if it were
not resolved in the people’s favor. This much has been affirmed by
business, labor, energy and economic experts, as well as consultants,
both foreign and local, and most especially, consumer advocates, who
have long protested such grave injustice.
For the past eight
years, the ERC has run afoul of several crucial decisions of the SC that
sought to protect Filipino electricity consumers. In 2003, the Puno-led
tribunal had already made several very important rulings: 1) a refund
of the P28-billion Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) overcharging since 1994
(which has not been fully concluded today, leaving a question as to
whether the power company actually took this out from consumers’
payments or its own equity); 2) an affirmation of the Electric Power
Industry Reform Act (Epira)’s Return on Rate Base (RoRB) of 12 percent
as a fair and just method of determining return on capital; 3) a
declaration that corporate income tax payments cannot be charged to
consumers as Meralco has done; and 4) an order for the Commission on
Audit (CoA) to scrutinize Meralco’s books, which led to the discovery of
P14 billion in overcharges for 2003 and 2007.
By exploiting a
loophole in the Epira, the ERC, in complete defiance of the SC, replaced
the RoRB that had been thoroughly threshed out by the high court with a
so-called Performance Based Regulation (PBR) scheme that allowed rates
of return to zoom up to 15 and well over 17 percent — with incentives to
boot! This also gave Meralco the leeway to continue charging its
income tax to customers under a new guise and the ERC further excuse to
write rules that open it to charges of corruption.
The Jan. 16 ERC
hearing was on two related petitions: “(a) Application for Approval of
Maximum Average Price (MAP) for 2012, (b) Translation of the (said) MAP…
into a Distribution Rate Structure for Meralco’s Various Customer
Classes.” Yet, the ERC is hearing these without first settling
prejudicial questions.
For one, Mang Naro Lualhati’s motion for
reconsideration on the ERC’s approval of the capital expense claim of
Meralco, upon which its (rounded off) MAP of P1.60/kWh is based — an
overstated amount as shown by earlier CoA findings, which correct rate
should only be P0.90/kWh — is still pending. For another, fellow
advocate Jojo Borja’s petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO)
on the ERC hearing, pending resolution of his protest for the regulatory
agency’s disregard of his evidence of Meralco’s overprice of its own
poles, transformers, and substations by over 500 percent, has yet to be
acted on.
Moreover, as another warrior in our cause, Butch Junia,
demanded that these prejudicial questions be settled first, drawing the
ire of a very well-suited Meralco lawyer, he proceeded to question the
“regulatory liaison” budget approved by the ERC for Meralco to the tune
of P2.2 billion (for the regulatory period of four years) or P550
million per year.
First of all, aren’t we, taxpayers, already
funding the ERC to regulate and communicate with all energy providers?
Why then should Meralco have its own budget for “liaison” charged to us
consumers?
And what exactly is “liaison?” The Free Online
Dictionary says that liaison is “an instance or a means of communication
between different groups or units; one that maintains communication; a
close relationship, connection, or link; an adulterous relationship; an
affair.”
Now, if theirs isn’t one that mirrors the latter definitions, do both really need P550 million a year just to communicate?
Since
we are today guaranteeing Meralco a 16-percent profit margin, as
opposed to the 12 percent ruled as fair by the SC of 2003; and as Mang
Naro has shown that the power firm’s annual P9-billion capital expense
should only be P1 billion; notwithstanding Jojo Borja’s revelation that
many of the most essential equipments used in its rate base application
are overpriced by as much as 500 percent, or Butch Junia’s exposé of its
P550-million annual “liaison” budget (which we will raise with the
courts in the near future), aren’t we ending up with a total of P50
billion in annual electricity rate overcharging, as approved by the ERC?
Third
party consultants of both the ERC and Meralco themselves have stated
for the record that Meralco’s assets are underutilized by as much as 50
percent. So why are yearly increases and an expansion of Meralco’s asset
base still being approved while the power company’s market grows by
only 2 percent?
Inasmuch as I was prevailed upon by my home
network to join its Senate impeachment watch, I immediately seized the
opportunity to raise the greater significance of the ERC hearing there,
as I am doing in this column today.
The real handlers of BS Aquino
III (the Makati Business Club, US Embassy, “evil society”) are the very
same ones behind the impeachment-ouster of President Joseph Estrada
more than a decade ago. Their purpose is to distract from the continuing
plunder by the oligarchs and the foreign financial mafia.
The
script is almost exactly the same. The Epira then was passed right
before an unsuspecting public just as Estrada was made a scapegoat.
Today, the power plunder rages on as some other scapegoats are paraded
anew.
(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., on
“QC’s last HURA in 2012;” 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/20120120com5.html
