While politicians and businessmen have joined President Aquino for
the National Day of Prayer and Solidarity to the victims of natural and
man-made calamities, workers in Metro Manila belonging to the labor
coalition Nagkaisa, trooped to the Supreme Court to seek relief and
ultimate deliverance from unjust power rate hikes.
The fifteen (15) justices, also known as ‘The gods of Faura’, were
set to hear oral arguments tomorrow on several petitions seeking
injunctions to Meralco’s P4.15/kWh rate increase. Prime in the agenda
to resolve are questions on whether or not the Energy Regulatory
Commission (ERC) committed grave abuse of discretion in approving
Meralco rate hike; whether or not automatic rate adjustment is valid;
and whether or not the generation sector is not a public utility and
therefore beyond regulation by ERC, among others.
“We pray that the justices deliver us from a decade-old fraud and
industry blackmail,” said Nagkaisa in a statement released during their
picket at the gates of the Supreme Court building. The group was
referring to frauds committed under the Electric Power Industry Reform
Act (EPIRA), including the latest allegations on collusion and market
abuse among power firms and the latter’s threat of rotating blackouts
had they fail to collect rate increases.
Nagkaisa asserted that since the enactment of EPIRA which led to the
deregulation of the generation of generation sector, privatization of
Napocor assets, the creation of spot market, and the introduction of
performance-based regulation, fraud became the norm in the power
industry as shown by rising prices and cartelization.
“It is no secret that owners of power firms, the so-called Voltage 5
(Aboitiz, Lopez, San Miguel, Henry Sy, and Pangilinan) have been earning
record high profits from record high tariffs of their power-related
firms,” said Nagkaisa.
The labor coalition recalled that lowering the cost of power was the
pledge of the Arroyo administration when it prodded Congress to pass the
EPIRA upon assumption to power 13 years ago today.
Nagkaisa explained further that since 2008, many of its convenor
groups have attended, submitted position papers, and argued against the
ills of EPIRA before committee hearings of both houses of Congress,
including those conducted by the powerful Joint Congressional Power
Committee (JCPC). Yet no actions were made to address those concerns.
It likewise chided the Executive for peddling the line that the only
choice for now is between expensive power, or having no power at all.
“We hope the Supreme Court brings light to a dark decade of power
hikes, naked greed, and blackmail amid unreliability of power supply,”
concluded Nagkaisa!
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