Mindanaotoday.com | Power rates hike not due to electric cooperatives
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Power rates have gone up in recent weeks, but industry leaders said electric cooperatives (EC) across the country have nothing to do with it.
Lawyer Janeene Depay-Colingan, executive director of the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca), said they have kept their rates as is since 2010.
“The DSM (distribution, supply, and metering) rate has never changed before and during the pandemic,” said Depay-Colingan in a press conference in Cagayan de Oro on Wednesday, August 31.
She said Senate President Juan Miquel Zubiri was right in saying not all blame should be on electric cooperatives since increases are due to high generation charges, as shown in the unbundled rates.
“When you pay your bills, the only amount that goes to the electric cooperatives is the one reflected in the DSM charges,” the Philreca official said, and the amount of DSM charge is fixed by law, changes in it would require Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approval.
ECs collect an average of P1.89 per kilowatthour which is reflected in the monthly electricity bill as distribution charges and that’s roughly 14 percent of the cost of power, but average generation charges in July this year have gone up to P9.12.
Because of high generation charges being passed on to customers, the rates per kwh of electricity among the 121 ECs nationwide range from a high of P20/kwh to as low as P7.82/kwh.
Depay-Colingan said the ECs are mere collectors or collecting agents of the payments due to power generation companies, the transmission systems operators, and even the taxes due to the government – value-added, energy, local franchise, business, and real estate taxes.
She said the cost of generation went up because of the high cost of fuel, lack of coal supply, the weakening of the peso, and the provision of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) which allows generation firms to pass on these costs to the consumers through the distribution utilities, including ECs.
More than 60 percent of the cost of electricity comes from generation charges, others from transmission (7%), taxes (8%), and universal charge (10%) which includes lifeline subsidy, senior citizen subsidy, feed-in tariff, and system loss.
In the same activity, Rep. Sergio C. Dagooc of the Association of Philippine Electric Cooperative (Apec) Party-List said that with the increasing costs of electric power, the loopholes of the EPIRA have become apparent.
“The EPIRA law need to be fixed,” said Dagooc, who has been managing ECs of Siargao and Dinagat aside from being a legislator in the House of Representatives.
He said calls to amend the 20-year old EPIRA, particularly in the Retail Competition and Open Access (Sec. 31), Creation of the ERC (Sec. 38), and Cross Ownership, Market Power Abuse and Anti-Competitive Behavior (Sec. 45) started early of 2019 and bills on these are pending in Congress.
The Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives (Amreco), headed by Jose Raul A. Saniel of Zamboanga del Sur I EC general manager, hosted the press conference. (MT)
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