Enrile urges review of power reform bill

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile urged yesterday a thorough review of the proposed Omnibus Power Reform Bill to prevent any power monopoly, keep consumers from paying higher electric rates, and protect electric cooperatives.

"The approved power bill should truly reflect the interests of consumers and the electric cooperatives that have served as the countryside’s economic engines," Enrile said.

He has written a letter to President Arroyo warning her against "being hoodwinked by clearly entrenched special interest groups." Enrile claimed that these groups have frustrated all efforts to incorporate in the bicameral conference committee report genuine safeguards against harmful monopoly and market domination.

Enrile is a member of the Senate bicameral committee headed by Sen. John Osmeña, chairman of the Senate committee on energy.

"My one-year fight to guard against the exploitation of the electric consumers has been a frustrating one. It seems there were hidden hands with veto power over pro-consumer amendments," Enrile lamented.

He pressed for the inclusion of safeguards against "sweetheart pricing and escalator and fuel indexing" among power distributors and producers and passed on to consumers as part of "purchased power adjustment."

"We must require the elimination of these sweetheart costs before private utilities are allowed to recover their stranded costs from consumers," he said.

Stranded costs from these "sweetheart deals" could cost consumers from P15 billion to P20 billion. – Efren Danao