‘Napocor warning pure blackmail’

Pure and simple blackmail.

This was how a consumer activist group branded yesterday the warning by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) that the country could suffer over 10 hours of blackouts a day if collection of the purchased power adjustment (PPA) is suspended.

In a statement, the People Opposed to Warrantless Electricity Rates (Power) called for the scrapping of the PPA and other anomalous charges in electricity bills.

"This is pure and simple blackmail. Napocor officials are now acting like paid hacks and hired goons of the independent power producers (IPPs) and big banks that are making a killing out of the PPA," Power spokesman Roberto Reyes Jr. said.

Napocor had explained that under its contract obligations with the IPPs, it has to buy all the power produced from them whether it uses the excess power or not.

The state firm said 35 IPPs supply 50 percent of the country’s power needs. If Napocor is not be able to pay the producers, it will lose that amount of power, resulting in long blackouts.

However, Power said Napocor should stop threatening the public and start acting like a public utility by seeking solutions to the problems brought about by the PPA.

The group also accused the Arroyo administration of trying to legitimize "anomalous and anti-consumer contracts" with the proposal for the government to assume the PPA and other stranded costs of the IPPs.

"Mrs. Arroyo’s appeal for government to assume the PPA will further legitimize flawed IPP contracts that are at the heart of the anomaly. It will make the government a partner in this grand highway robbery of the power companies," Reyes said.

He stressed that consumers will still be paying for something they did not use.

Sen. Tessie Aquino Oreta said the government was merely postponing the problem when it drafted a bill that would strengthen the Power Sector Asset and Liability Management Corp. (PSALM) in absorbing the PPA.

"Electricity consumers will still end up the ultimate losers, standing to shoulder the payment for the refinanced PPA at a later time under the refinancing strategy of PSALM," she said.

The senator said Napocor’s warning of possible blackouts is being unduly raised to scare the public and legislators into accepting the firm’s "excessive stranded costs" being passed to consumers.

"This smacks of blackmail," she said.

The inclusion of the PPA charges in the monthly electric bills was a result of the tapping of the IPPs’ services in the early ’90s by the Ramos administration in its effort to solve a crippling power crisis in which the country suffered eight hours of blackouts daily.

Opposition lawmakers have pressed for the amendment of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act that could reduce a main component of the PPA charges from P1.28 per kilowatt hour to 40 centavos per kilowatt hour.

Sen. Renato Cayetano, chairman of the Senate committee on energy, vowed swift action on the proposed legislation.

He expressed confidence that the measure would be filed early this week so that public hearings can be conducted.

"I am coordinating with my House counterpart so that we can hold joint hearings and save time," he said.

In a related development, former senator Juan Ponce Enrile urged the government yesterday to take over the operations of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) to ease the people’s burden in the payment of high electricity bills.

Enrile, a guest at the weekly Kapihan sa Sulu forum, said consumers during the Marcos regime did not have to worry about the high price of electricity because Meralco was under the government’s control.

He said President Arroyo’s acceptance ratings have been dipping lately because consumers continue to struggle with high electricity bills as a result of the controversial PPA.

"I really doubt if the administration has the political will to save the people from the escalating price of electricity. But the government should take over Meralco if it really wants to ease the burden of the poor Filipinos," he said. – With Efren Danao, Jose Rodel Clapano