BY WENNA A. BERONDO AND MANUEL ‘BOY’ MEJORADA

Starting this month, the Panay Electric Company (PECO) will implement a P3 per kilowatt-hour increase in its generation charge.

This means that from the present P7.50/KW, the rate will go up to P10.50/KW, which the consumers will see once they receive their billing for this month.

For instance, a household that consumes 100KW a month will have to pay P750 under the old rate but with the P3 increase, it will now pay as high as P1,050.

Engr. Randy Pastolero, PECO’s assistant vice president for operations said the amount of the increase is almost half of the original rate but have been explaining and informing the public since two months ago about the matter.

He clarified it is not PECO that asked for the increase but the Panay Energy Development Corporation, which petitioned the Energy Regulations Commission to allow it to higher its generation rates.

“The amount is not for us. Whatever is approved by the ERC, we only collect for PEDC because we have a power purchase agreement with them,” Pastolero said.

The increase will be implemented to cover the costs of coal PEDC used to produce electricity that it supplies to PECO.

Presently, PECO gets 65 MW of its power supply from PEDC and 15 MW from private power corporations. PECO has a total peak demand of 85 MW during peak time.

“Our P10.50 per kilowatt-hour rate is still lower than the other power distributors here like the cooperatives which charge their customers P11 or P12 per kilowatt-hour,” Pastolero told The News Today in a phone interview.

He said the current rate of electricity here is the same with April or before they reduced their rates middle of this year.

When they lowered their electricity rate in June, he added they gave notices and warning to public that “it was just a temporary thing.”

Earlier, consumer group Freedom from Debt Coalition expressed their opposition against all applications for power rate hike and even held a National Day of Protest Against Power Rate Hike.

Power rates here are also expected to increase again once the ERC approved the application of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines to acquire the sub-transmission assets of PEDC for P620 million.

PEDC operates the 164-megawatt coal-fired power plant in La Paz, Iloilo City. Aside from PECO, it also supplies power to other distribution utilities located in the nearby provinces of Antique, Aklan, Guimaras, Capiz and Negros.

UNIVERSAL CHARGE

Meanwhile, the proposed “universal charge” for stranded costs and debts of the National Power Corporation (Napocor) could result in an extra P1.00 per kilowatt hour charge to ordinary power consumers, and this is the reason a party-list congressman representing the rural electric cooperatives has led the move to block its implementation.

“Our consumers have enough burden on their shoulders, and we can’t allow the mismanagement of the state-owned power firm in the past to resurface and punish ordinary Filipinos by making them pay for those mistakes,” Rep. Salvador “Kiting” Cabaluna III of the 1st Consumers Alliance for Rural Energy (1-CARE) said.

Cabaluna also sounded the alarm on the need to institute changes in the Electrical Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) to pull the country “out of its skid” as a result of the problems caused by the high cost of power.

Cabaluna said the situation has reached an alarming level because many congressmen share the view that “the power sector has become an obstacle to national development”.

Cabaluna aired these views Wednesday during the “Kapehan sa Bali” cable television and radio talk show at the Bali Hotel.

At the same time, Cabaluna said he is demanding for a full accounting from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) on how the “missionary charges” collected from power consumers across the country is utilized to help isolated islands obtain a steady source of electricity.

Cabaluna said he was surprised to learn from colleagues in the House of Representatives that many of these isolated islands suffer from prolonged outages, sometimes not having electricity for an entire 24-hour period.

The “missionary charge” is a mandatory fee imposed upon electricity consumers to subsidize the cost of generating electricity for areas, particularly islands too far from the mainland to be serviced by distribution utilities such as cooperatives, he said.

“What’s the use of ordinary consumers chipping in to light up distant islands when there’s no power service most of the time?” he asked.

Cabaluna said there are many issues that need to be tackled and resolved when it comes to the power sector. His party list, he said, has taken a lead role in fighting for issues to protect power consumers.

In seeking to stop the imposition of the “universal charges” for stranded costs and debts of the Napocor, Cabaluna said he has filed a resolution seeking an investigation into why the state-owned firm’s debts even ballooned to several hundred billion pesos despite the sale of more than 85 percent of its assets.

“It’s hard to understand what happened,” he said. “Normally, the sale of assets will decrease the costs and debts. In the case of the Napocor, the opposite seems to be happening.

Cabaluna said the EPIRA which governs all aspects of power generation, transmission and distribution has failed to achieved its objective of stabilizing the industry and bringing down the cost of power.

It has been 10 years since its enactment, he said, and there is almost nothing that it can point as proof that it is working.

“To be honest about it, I can describe the situation as a period of darkness for the country as far as power is concerned,” he said.

There is a need for Congress to remedy apparent defects in the law with a great sense of urgency to turn the situation around, he added.

Meanwhile, the law that created the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) needs to be revisited by Congress with a view to providing consumers with representation in this collegial body and look after their interests, Cabaluna said.

He said “the odds are stacked against the ordinary consumers” because the ERC is composed by commissioners identified with the private business sector engaged in the generation and distribution of electricity.

Because of this, consumer advocates have complained that the ERC almost never turns down petitions for rate increases filed by distribution utilities, he said.*