by Joyce Pangco Panares Posted on Apr. 04, 2013 at 12:02am
Re-electionist Alan Cayetano has criticized the government for telling Mindanao residents to bear with rate increases amid the plan to procure diesel-fed generator sets in solving the power crisis.
“Consumers shouldn’t be made to carry this burden,” he said. “Higher electric prices would mean higher prices of all basic services and commodities.”
For Cayetano, making the people take a bitter pill is uneventful.
“The bottom line is this means less income for the families in the area. Their ability to support themselves will be reduced even further.”
Cayetano said all options should be explored including a review of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.
“The government should take more active steps to increase its role in the power sector such as buying back the transmission lines and previously-owned power plants. We also have to establish a stronger regulatory body that will hear matters involving power rates,” he said.
Power rates in Mindanao may increase by P1.80 per kilowatt-hour once electric cooperatives in the region decide to adopt the government’s recommendation to acquire their own diesel-fired generators.
President Benigno Aquino III earlier appealed to Mindanao residents to bear the brunt of higher power rates.
“That is inevitable. Diesel costs more,” he said. “The choice is this: higher power rates or no power at all? Most of the people we have talked to understood that there will be increase in costs.”
Mr. Aquino said the power surplus situation in Mindanao will improve in two years.
“By 2015, we expect the problem to largely go away. The power plants that are being built right now will go online by that time,” he said. With Macon Ramos Araneta source
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