Palace won't intervene on power rate increase

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is not going to intervene with the decision of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to allow Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to collect higher distribution and metering fees beginning next month.

Meralco said the ERC approved its petition for a maximum average price (MAP) of P1.6303 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) for distribution, supply and metering charges to different customer classes.

The National Power Corp. (NPC), through its unit Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), is also seeking as much as 10.59 centavos per kwh rate increase.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said over radio dzRB that the Palace would not be in a position to comment on the ERC resolution “primarily because the ERC is independent” from the Department of Energy.

“We don’t have control. The application for the increase of rates was from June 2007 to 2010. So it was only now that the decision was handed down. We will leave it up to the ERC to answer as to their basis for saying that there should be a hike for the customers, for the clients of this particular distributor,” Valte said.

However, she belied reports that power outages were looming in Metro Manila.

In fact, Valte said the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines had announced it had successfully hurdled the yellow alert and because of the tight monitoring and coordination among concerned entities, the “blackouts as feared by some” did not occur.

She said this was despite the fact that some power sources went offline.