Sen. Grace Poe is seeking to summon the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to a hearing to determine how to address the problem of high cost of power hounding consumers.
The ERC, the regulator of the energy sector, approves rates charged to consumers as well as the power supply agreements that distribution companies enter into with generation companies.
Generation costs approved, however, do not include fluctuations in fuel prices and in the exchange rates that result in higher fuel costs.
“Almost every increase is passed on to our consumers. This has been the practice and our people bear the brunt. It’s almost no risk to the providers,” Poe explained.
The senator said the Electric Power Industry Reform Act needs to be reviewed, including the power supply contracts to provide safeguards and protect consumers.
“There’s no excuse for cooperatives to have bad service, faulty infrastructure because they always recoup their costs. In some areas, they can’t supply power for more than 24 hours. What have they been doing with the money that they have been receiving? They are not spending it on improving their services,” Poe lamented.
The senator said private companies enjoy lower rates from generation companies than electric cooperatives. Power rates in some areas are even double those of the power rates in Metro Manila, and even then, people have to contend with outages.
“I believe in the sanctity of contracts. However, when public good is affected, we should start reviewing all these contracts that they entered into,” Poe said.
“I don’t think anybody should be locked into a punishing agreement especially when the brunt is being borne by the consumers,” she added.
Poe hopes that solutions on how to deal with the high power costs could be discussed in the hearing with the ERC, including the possibility of removing the value-added tax on generation charges and its ramifications.
