TUCP seeks refund for customers of electric cooperatives

MANILA, Philippines - A labor union will ask the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to order independent power producers (IPPs) and the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) to refund with legal interest to customers of electric cooperatives the P3 to P5 per kilowatt-hour rate increase in the generation charge of their bills from December 2013 to March 2014.

Gerard Seno, Associated Labor Unions-TUCP executive vice president, said electric cooperative consumers were forced to pay the increases because the TRO issued by the Supreme Court did not cover them.

“ERC is committing serious dereliction of duty for not acting on the increase passed on by the PEMC, the power generators and the electric cooperatives to the hapless customers in northern Luzon,” he said.

“By virtue of having the same Malampaya facility or the Ilijan, San Lorenzo and Sta. Rita plants as power source, the same price recalculation should have been ordered by ERC over non-Meralco franchise areas on the same day and manner they ordered the utility to roll back the price of electricity to its true cost and refund the money customers have paid.”

TUCP executive director Louie Corral said he is disappointed at the ERC’s inaction and the silence over PEMC and the IPPs.

“The power producers and their partners in crime are merrily counting billions of pesos in profit,” he said.

“We will ask them to refund the customers with legal interest. They cannot get away with economic sabotage, treason and plunder. ERC wake up.”

Corral said the ERC and Department of Energy are inutile.

“We hope that through this prayer they will come to their senses and void the increase and order the cooperatives to return consumers’ hard-earned money,” he said.

Corral identified the 12 electric cooperatives and the amount of electricity purchased from WESM and their corresponding rate increases over the same contested period as CAGELCO-1 (Cagayan Electric Cooperative), P2.79/kwh; BATELEC-1 (Batangas Electric Cooperative Inc.), P3.22/kwh; ISECO (Ilocos Sur Electric Cooperative Inc.), P3.51/kwh; FLECO (First Laguna Electric Cooperative Inc.), P1.93/kwh; NEECO II-A1 (Nueva Ecija Electric Cooperative), P1.69/kwh; CASURECO II (Camarines Sur Electric Cooperative), P6.74/kwh; SORECO-1 (Sorsogon Electric Cooperative), P3.72/kwh; DECORP (Dagupan Electric Corp.), P2.99/kwh; LUELCO (La Union Electric Cooperative Inc.), P2.48/kwh; PANELCO III (Pangasinan Electric Cooperative), P4.54/kwh; PENELCO (Peninsula Electric Cooperative, Bataan), P2.83/kwh; and TARELCO-2 (Tarlac Electric Cooperative Inc.), P4.29/kwh.

These charges are passed on to customers and reflected in their December 2013 to March 2014 generation charge billings.

 On March 3, the ERC ordered the PEMC to re-compute the price of electricity at the WESM after they determined the P4.15 per kwh rate hike for December 2013 and the P5.33 hike per kwh for January 2014 of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) were unreasonable.