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THE
battle lines are drawn and the power face-off is on. No
less than President Arroyo has put everyone on notice
that her administration will no longer take the
ever-increasing power rates sitting down.
For the
moment, she has taken the twin measures of ordering
state power company National Power Corp. (Napocor) to
synchronize the rates it is charging Manila Electric Co.
(Meralco) and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM)
with those that it is currently charging electric
cooperatives; and simultaneously petitioned the Energy
Regulatory Commission (ERC) to look into its charges in
an effort to bring down the rates in the country’s Luzon
Urban Beltway. The Beltway, which hosts majority of the
country’s industries and commercial activities and more
than half of the population, is the Lopez-led Meralco’s
main franchise area.
Last
month Meralco customers saw their electric bill increase
by at least 67 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), prompting
another round of blame-tossing between the power
distributor and Napocor which supplies more than half of
its requirements.
This
face-off which has been going on for years impacts as
well on the ongoing dispute between these two companies
over the so-called Settlement Agreement on Contract of
Sale of Electricity pending before the ERC, involving
billions of pesos ranging from a low of P14.5 billion to
a high of P50 billion which Napocor is trying to
collect. The resolution of this issue on top of the
SC-ordered reimbursements that Meralco must shoulder
will definitely influence the power rates in the Beltway
for years on end. In addition, Mrs. Arroyo also ordered
Napocor to reduce its charges to government-run economic
zones from P4.11 per kWh to P3.52/kWh, a move seen to
boost competitiveness further.
Addressing a gathering of businessmen, Mrs. Arroyo said:
“Reducing power rates is one of the strategic areas the
government is investing time and resources in, to
improve our competitiveness…I have been wondering
[aloud] why power costs in the Luzon Urban Beltway,
where many of you operate, should be so high when Luzon
is reliant on imported oil for only 1 percent of its
power. . . .Therefore we know there is room for
improvement.”
Indeed,
depending on whose side you are—whether the surging
power rates are caused by Meralco’s unexplained charges
and unconscionable greed, or Napocor’s incompetence and
corrupt practices—the President’s order will clear up
the decks, so to speak, and force everyone, especially
the ERC and the public, to focus on the many ills, if
not imponderables, in the country’s power sector: from
legislation to tariff-setting to energy mix to safety
and related concerns, and even conservation and other
practices. It will open up our eyes to the latest trends
in energy generation (alternatives, localized and
microengineered), to access and breakup of the
monopolies within the sector to subsidies and
legislative lockups which many believe the Electric
Power Industry Reform Act has become. It is well that
both Napocor and Meralco have advised that they will be,
as they have always been, ready to open up their books
and their operations for public and the regulators’
scrutiny.
Which
brings us to another point. Quite apart from the above
efforts, the noise generated by Government Service
Insurance System president and Meralco director Winston
Garcia for the utility to “open up its books and be more
transparent with its operations” will certainly bring
added impetus for all concerned to watch for unfolding
events.
This is
one drama which will not only be riveting but
far-reaching in its impact not just on the power sector
but on the balance of forces in this benighted land.
Abangan. . . .
CebuPac’s woes
The mea
culpas of Cebu Pacific (CebuPac) spokesperson Candice
Iyog and Asian Spirit’s Trina Francisco were of no
moment as far as the hundreds of passengers on scheduled
CebuPac and Asian Spirit flights bound for Visayas and
Mindanao over the Labor Day weekend were concerned. One
of them, presidential daughter Luli, who waited for six
hours to board an Asian Spirit plane for Caticlan, had
to be whisked off on a presidential chopper for an
unknown destination when the long wait was getting too
long for anyone’s comfort. The rest had to make do with
the tired reassurances being made by the two airlines’
ground staff and just had to bear and grin. It turns out
that the two airlines’ limited fleets have been so
stretched beyond the safety limits it was a miracle not
one was seriously impaired. Which would have been truly
tragic.
The case
of Asian Spirit, which has just been taken over by
fruit-juice magnate Alfredo Yao, is quite
understandable. It is still in the process of upgrading
and expanding its fleet. For the Labor Day weekend, its
five-plane dedicated fleet for the Manila-Caticlan run
was cut in half as two planes had to be grounded for
safety checks and one was chartered for a Macau tour
group. The problem was it failed to notify its
passengers, many of whom booked for Boracay last March
yet, about the problem—perhaps hoping against hope that
somehow the safety checks would be done faster or it
could divert some of its planes for other destinations
to cover the heavy Caticlan run. Well, that did not push
through and Asian Spirit will have to do a lot of
refunding and massaging if it hopes to get back to the
good graces of its customers.
That of
Cebu Pacific is quite another. Having built its
reputation as the country’s premier budget airline on
fast, reliable and cheap service with a whole-new fleet
of state-of-the-art airplanes to boot, the Gokongwei
carrier could not simply shrug off the delays on “power
fluctuations at the old domestic terminal,” which was
what Iyog spinned to nobody’s satisfaction. In fact, a
friend from Davao whose family was scheduled to fly out
at
8 a.m. but managed to do so 10 hours after was so aghast at
CebuPac’s buck-passing that he decided to look into the
airline’s situation.
It turns
out that CebuPac, like Asian Spirit and possibly the
other budget carriers, has been stretching its fleet to
the limits to accommodate its expansionist goals of
“flying to more domestic destinations and opening up
more foreign routes” than Philippine Airline. He learned
that CebuPac flies to its regional destinations late at
night or early morning, then turns around in a jiffy to
a full day of domestic routing. Nothing wrong with
optimizing your fleet’s use, but this may be a case of
overly misusing it to the point that safety and
passenger convenience are unduly compromised. Which is
what is happening to CebuPac right now, as my friend
found out. Well, if this is news to our regulators, they
better look into their logs and bring their field men to
task. True, we cannot and should not condone horrendous
delays. But neither can we countenance safety shortcuts
to feed the egos or the pockets of airline owners who
should know better. Not now, not ever. |
