Withdraw power-rate hike petitions, labor group tells DOE, PSALM

Business Mirror
WEDNESDAY, 09 NOVEMBER 2011 20:40 SARAH FABUNAN / CORRESPONDENT


THE Trade Union Congress Party (TUCP) slammed Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras on his move to terminate this December the Independent Power Producer Administrator (IPPA) contracts which had provided the special economic zones with discounted power rates.


TUCP Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza said Almendras apparently believes that discounts will no longer be the norm and the industries will be free to source their electricity from higher-priced sources.


He added this means these industries are also free to pack up and leave the country.


“Almendras’ cavalierly forgets that 230,000 Filipino workers and their respective families depend on these ecozones,” explained Mendoza.


“TUCP condemns the high-handed arrogance of an unfeeling energy technocracy that says we should leave the fate of the ecozones which face a rate increase to the vagaries of the market, but when the issue involves maintaining or lowering tariffs, oh we should refer that to the JCPC [Joint Congressional Power Commission]. This double standard is absolute rubbish,” said the TUCP solon.


At the same time, Mendoza challenged the leadership of the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) to fulfill their commitment to the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy to withdraw their pending power-rate increase petitions with the Energy Regulatory Board.


The DOE and the PSALM filed the petitions to recover “stranded costs” which would raise power rates by 39 centavos per/kWh.


“PSALM made commitments to the House Committee on Energy that PSALM would withdraw these rate increase petitions. I want Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras and President Emmanuel R. Ledesma Jr. to categorically either answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether they will withdraw these petitions,” explained Mendoza.


Almendras had said that the withdrawal of the rate increase petitions lay with the JCPC because it has oversight over the proper implementation of the Epira.


The TUCP solon expressed “incomprehension, bewilderment, and incredulity” with the “lame, intellectuallly bankrupt, mentally addled and morally snivelling excuses” of Almendras and Ledesma in seeking to now pass on responsibility for the demanded withdrawal of the pending rate-increase petitions to the JCPC.


“We have news for Messrs. Almendras and Ledesma. The buck stops with you when the issue is high power rates. It is PSALM that is still claiming $15.8 billion in stranded costs notwithstanding the sale of 92 percent of the assets of the National Power Corp. from whose proceeds PSALM should have already wiped out any stranded cost. It is the PSALM which filed a rate increase to recover this amount from all consumers as a 39 centavo per kWh rate increase. It is PSALM which can withdraw these petitions. So if these two gentlemen cannot stand the heat they should either resign or request the President to relieve them,” said Mendoza.


TUCP had earlier accused PSALM of bad faith in failing to comply with its representations to the House Committee on Energy. “Almendras and Ledesma are back-peddaling and are hair-splitting in a disgusting attempt to try to pass on the buck and evade command responsibility,” said Mendoza.


Members of the committee are mulling on whether to cite officials of PSALM for contempt. “Instead of being the handmaidens of the ‘business-as-usual’ philosophy, both the energy secretary and PSALM president should have drawn their inspiration from the ‘Matuwid na Daan’ of the President [Aquino] to question many of the dealings of PSALM between 2001 and 2011 that properly should not be treated as stranded costs,” added Mendoza.