No blackouts this summer— Palace

MANILA, Philippines - There will be no massive blackouts in the summer months, Malacañang assured the public yesterday.

The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has warned of massive outages if the Supreme Court (SC) retains its freeze on the firm’s plan to raise rates by a hefty P4.15 per kilowatt-hour.

Malacañang gave the assurance as the 60-day temporary restraining order (TRO) on Meralco’s rate hike plan is set to lapse on Feb. 23.

Militant groups and a consumers’ organization, which filed the petition for TRO, want the high court to permanently reject Meralco’s rate increase bid.

“Government is taking necessary steps to ensure continuity of power supply during the summer season,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said.

Demand for power during the dry season is normally high.

“The government is prepared to run the Malaya thermal power plant up to 70 days to boost supply during the summer months, when demand is expected to rise especially in Luzon,” he said, quoting Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla.

Coloma said the Department of Energy has already advised power plants to “undertake preventive and regular maintenance of their facilities, so that these will operate optimally during the peak-demand months.”

“Government also continues to monitor closely the movement of consumer prices in order to protect the citizens’ purchasing power,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) wants Congress to end the “monopolistic” hold of Meralco on power distribution by revoking its legislative franchise.

“This (cancellation of franchise) should give way to a more democratic power distribution set up that can provide the consuming public affordable rates and quality and stable supply of electricity,” FDC president Ricardo Reyes said.

He said Meralco has not satisfactorily presented a justification for its plan to raise its rate sharply during several Senate hearings on the issue.

“Meralco committed imprudence by not including a power replacement provision in their power supply agreement with their power generation company suppliers First Gen and Kepco in case of scheduled maintenance shutdowns of Malampaya,” Reyes said.

“Meralco offered to WESM and bid at the maximum price of P62/kwh its 100-megawatt contracted supply from Therma Mobile of Aboitiz Power at a time when it was claiming to be disturbed over this power supply problem,” he said.

Reyes also said that Meralco, in negotiating contracts with power generation companies, failed to make the latter take into account its insurance claims against forced outages instead of passing the cost automatically to consumers.

FDC also said Meralco’s raising the scenario of massive blackouts in the summer months was tantamount to blackmail.

“That Meralco has the gall to argue this way and blackmail the public and even the government attests to the inordinate power it has attained through several decades of monopoly on the power distribution industry and its privileged relations with all those who held power in Malacañang since EDSA I,” Reyes said. – Paolo Romero, Rhodina Villanueva