Manila, Philippines - Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. yesterday supported calls to “revisit” the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), saying that the time is ripe to repeal the law, following the skyrocketing power rates.
The House Chief also appealed to Meralco to “roll back” its P4.15 per kilowatt hour hike after its implementation in March.
Some people have been talking about revisiting it to find out if it is really working, the bundling and unbundling, and so forth, to promote competition, Belmonte said.
He said the power rates increases “are so big,” prodding the House committee on energy, chaired by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, to look into a possible “collusion” among major players in the power industry.
The Umali panel has decided to look into the “unprogrammed” power outages after the Department of Energy (DOE) recognized that there was indeed a collusion, saying that they only anticipated P1.58 per kilowatt hour hike and not P4.16 which was imposed by Meralco and was approved by Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
Belmonte also took note the initiative of the consumer groups to bring to court their protest against the alleged unreasonable and anti-consumer rate adjustments, saying, “That is their right.”
In a related development, members of Akbayan Partylist climbed electric posts and with posters to show their protest against Meralco’s power hike.
“Despite the hardship that most Filipinos go through, we’re always known to celebrate the Christmas season in a positive light. Despite tighter budgets, Filipino families will always find ways to enjoy the holidays. Sadly, Meralco took it upon themselves to ruin the public’s festive mood,” Bello said.
“This is nothing short of capitulation to the interests of the big energy companies such as Meralco. ERC failed to even lift a finger on this issue despite the mandate given to it by the EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) to look into possible anti-competitive behavior,” he said. source
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