Groups hit ERC, PSALM on looming power-rate increase

Business Mirror

Published on Wednesday, 20 February 2013 19:57

Written by Jonathan L. Mayuga / Reporter

MILITANT groups on Wednesday slammed the decision of the Energy Regulatory  Commission (ERC) to allow the government-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) to increase electricity cost by 19.38 centavos starting next month to collect P53.58 billion worth of stranded costs (SCs).

Leaders of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and Anakpawis have expressed outrage and called on President Aquino to step in and stop the looming increase in the cost of electricity.

In a statement, Anakpawis described the move as “scandalous” and “shameless.”

“The ERC is not doing its job to protect public interest. It is in grand connivance with the sitting presidency in Malacañang to keep power consumers miserable, exploited and pestered with high electricity cost 24 hours a day,” said Fernando Hicap, vice chairman of Anakpawis party said.

Hicap said that his group will formally file its protest against the power-rate hike approved by the ERC.

For his part, Pamalakaya Vice Chairman Salvador France said the public should be spared from paying P53.58 billion, which he said was a grand product of privatization, liberalization and deregulation policy in the power sector.

“The political and economic brains behind the Epira [Electric Power Industry Reform Act] law, whether they are public or private or both should be held criminally liable. The burden of paying these SCs from 2007 to 2010 should be carried by private interests, industry key players and the National Power Corp. [Napocor] and should not be passed to the power consumers and tax paying public,” France said.

Meanwhile, the KMU, vowed to stage massive protest actions against the looming power rate increase.

Elmer Labog, chairman of KMU said that the approval of a 19.38-centavo increase per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in power rates would be an immense burden for workers and ordinary people.

KMU said the increase, which amounts to almost a P40 increase in the bill of a typical household consuming 200 kWh per month and will be itemized as universal charge, or UC, is not about households’ actual power consumption but about the profits of big capitalists in the power sector which the government guaranteed under its privatization policy.

 “This power rate hike gives Filipinos another reason to hold a Protestang Bayan on the third week of March. The imposition of a UC is not about consumers’ actual consumption of electricity. We are being made to pay more so big capitalists in the power sector can increase their profits,” he said.

The ERC maintained all electricity consumers are liable to pay this charge to their respective distribution utilities or to the grid operator for the directly connected customers, which in turn, shall remit all their collections to Psalm.   source