TARGETING to lower power rates through competition and at the same time rake in much-needed revenues, President Arroyo, in a briefing with economic managers Monday, directed the Department of Energy (DOE) and its attached agencies to implement open access in private and publicly owned ecozones and speed up the privatization of the generation and transmission assets of the government.

In a press conference shortly after the briefing with economic heads of the government, Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes said they have been directed to accelerate the privatization of National Power Corp.’s (Napocor) generation assets, Philippine National Oil Co.-Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC) and the National Transmission Corp. (Transco).

“We had a productive meeting with the President, and we told her we will complete the privatization before the end of the year, particularly the auction of the Calaca, Palinpinon, Tiwi-MakBan and the Binga-Ambukla, where we expect to generate anywhere from $5 billion, $6 billion and $7 billion,” said the energy chief.

PRESIDENT Arroyo and Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes lead a meeting of energy officials on Monday at the Department of Energy Building at the PNOC Compound in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City. The President pressed her officials to speed up privatization of Napocor and Transco assets and implement open access in economic zones to reduce power rates. --RHOY COBILLA

Reyes added that President Arroyo also wants to implement open access in public and privately owned economic zones to lower electricity rates and make industries more competitive with those in other countries.

“We will implement the President’s directive to have open access in both private and public economic zones, and we will coordinate with the appropriate agencies for that,” he said.

Trade Secretary Peter Favila said the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) will implement the guidelines for open access within the week, which will benefit industrial users of electricity.

He added that the Peza will also look into declaring Tiwi in Albay, Makban in Laguna and Batangas, Tongonan in Leyte, and Bacon in Negros, among others, as industrial zones to enable locators and industries to source power directly from geothermal power plants.

Energy Undersecretary Melinda Ocampo, on the other hand, said that while open access will give industrial consumers the power to choose their own supplier, residential consumers will continue to enjoy the 30-centavo per kilowatt-hour mandated reduction under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 and the lifeline rates.

The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), Napocor and DOE also formed a technical working group that will ensure the success of government’s privatization efforts.

Reyes also noted that the privatization of the remaining 40-percent stake of PNOC-EDC will also be undertaken before year-end, which is projected to generate revenues of P32 billion to P36 billion.

“We have identified bottlenecks of the privatization and all these bottlenecks have already been broken, and hopefully we can proceed faster as scheduled,” he said.

The energy czar said they would also push through with the privatization of Transco’s 25-year concession this year.

PSALM president Jose Ibazeta said the privatization schedule this year includes the 600-megawatt Calaca coal-fired facility, 192-megawatt Palinpinon geothermal facility, 685-megawatt Tiwi-Makban geothermal facility, and 175-megawatt Ambuklao-Binga.

“If we include Tiwi-Makban, we will achieve 50-percent privatization by end of the year. To date, we have already privatized 24.8 percent of Napocor’s generating assets. At the same time, it is also difficult to give estimates of projected revenues from the targeted sale,” said Ibazeta, but he expects the amount to be “sizeable.”

TARGETING to lower power rates through competition and at the same time rake in much-needed revenues, President Arroyo, in a briefing with economic managers Monday, directed the Department of Energy (DOE) and its attached agencies to implement open access in private and publicly owned ecozones and speed up the privatization of the generation and transmission assets of the government.

THE Department of Justice (DOJ) has affirmed the authority of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to supervise the operations and limit the volume of minerals to be extracted by small-scale mining firms.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is now pinpointing up to 80,000 hectares of farmland in Visayas and Mindanao where palay could be planted up to mid-September to offset the projected losses in palay production in Luzon due to the dry spell.

SORSOGON CITY—Every year, the red-tide phenomenon infecting Sorsogon Bay since late last year,  feared to stay on for the next 25 years, would be costing this city P100 million in lost income and other economic benefits.

THE country’s real-estate tycoons stand to benefit from the decision of China to open up to the region its property management and development sector as part of its offer under the trade in services chapter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)-China free-trade agreement (FTA).

THE United States government has given the Philippines a sugar quota allocation of 142,160 metric tons (MT) of raw cane sugar for fiscal year (FY) 2008 which starts from October 1 this year up to September 30 next year.