Electricity: A 21st century blessing

The rainy season – with its accompanying boon and bane - is really here. You wake up one sunny morning to start the day, and then you conclude the day amid a sudden downpour that create flash floods – and, at times, a few minutes of brownouts. You rush to light a candle which is conveniently reachable from the corner – but soon enough the lights are on!

This is life in the metropolis. You have a flashlight handy or that old reliable candle tucked away in a corner for easy access. Fortunately enough, the flashlight’s battery is not drained and the candle’s flame is snuffed out as fast as electricity is restored at home. In the midst of imponderables of city living, there are little blessings like a reliable flow of electricity to light bulbs, ignite ref and aircon motors, and give just the right heat to your flat iron.

In Mega Manila, we have Meralco, a reliable 24/7 electricity distributor. Beyond this burgeoning metropolis are other electric distributors which follow the same Meralco mandate to make sure electric power flows through substations to homes, factories, offices and schools. They are at the downstream side of assuring uninterrupted electricity supply. Upstream are independent power producers, which generate power, and a transmission company that connects power generators to electric distributors through those cables strung together by transmission towers spanning towns and cities.

I don’t know about you, but I believe electricity is one of our 21st century blessings. Since Thomas Edison invented the electric bulb and other scientists after invented our other modern day conveniences — electricity has been their common denominator. They light up or run because of electricity.

 So, Meralco and other distribution utilities have a real social function to perform. While we rely on their built-in commitment to quality and responsive service, our regulators and a regulatory system make sure they do perform well. In the scheme of things, we have the Energy Regulatory Commission which oversees all players in the electric power industry.

There is also that little understood PBR, short for Performance-Based Regulation, that ERC uses to keep our electric power industry players on their toes in delivering real good service to us power customers. One feature of PBR is the guarantee service levels (GSLs) which has a schedule of fines or penalties when these distributors fail to meet standards. And, mind you, these really hurt the pocketbooks of these distributors if they fall short of standards. They pay out in cash.

Such standards include how fast Meralco and other distributors restore electricity, how fast they reconnect and how they keep their word. When they say we connect you at this date, they better stick to that date, or else they are fined. I recall that in the first few months of implementing PBR, Meralco had to pay out a couple of hundred million pesos to every customer that experienced delays.

As expected, Meralco watched the performance of every member of its team, and so more recently, their “finest moments” (occasions of getting fined) has become few and far between.

The other side of PBR is the reward component. If the distribution utility performs well, it is rewarded with the possibility of a power rate increase. But, wait. That is not automatic. ERC would still review the level of such rates. ERC ever balances the greater interest of electricity customers and the viability of distribution utilities and their ability to expand capacity so that they can continue to provide service to a growing population of power consumers.

 That’s the way it goes. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you get your lunch free once in a while, you can be sure somebody is paying for it.

So your electricity bill says that you pay for enjoying modern-day conveniences. Electricity is no longer a luxury. Two weeks ago, a super typhoon visited our metropolis — downed many trees, collapsed many homes and, yes, left in its trail a two-day brownout. So we grabbed that newly minted fan, a souvenir item from the Noynoy inaugural, to take the place of the handy electric fan. We got hold of a candle or a flash light. (If we had an extra cell phone, we could have turned it on to provide faint but effective illumination anyway.)

Thankfully enough, in two days’ time, electricity is back. Everything else plugged to the power line whirred into action. We heaved a sigh of relief, stretched our legs on the center table, and watched this good looking spokesman from Meralco assuring us that we can again enjoy this 21st century friend - electricity. Through that woeful two-day ordeal with no power, Meralco’s crew of line men with their modern trucks and expert hands climbed posts to reconnect the lines.

And my cell phone, flashing “low bat,” was instantly charged via a powerline in a nearby plug. 

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Quick to concede her loss in last May’s elections, Sen. Loren Legarda continues with her work as a legislator in the 15th Congress. In just under a month, she has filed 10 bills and a number of resolutions which focus on agriculture, health, local government, just compensation for teachers, kasambahays, nurses and men and women in uniform, overseas Filipino workers, and the environment.

Legarda’s SB No. 3 assures especially indigent Filipinos who are more vulnerable to health risks of basic health care services through access to basic health care from government.  

SB No. 5 aims to reduce the prices of over 1,500 drug formulations because the existing law, Republic Act 9502, resulted in price reductions to merely 22 drug formations.

Another bill calls on “the adoption of a priority adaptation strategy from the provincial to the barangay level to green, rehabilitate and protect forest lands to prevent an ecosystem decline which will aggravate the impact of climate change.”

Senate Bill No. 7 strongly recommends the pegging of the minimum wage for household helpers to P4,000 and requiring that all household working arrangements be in writing in a language or dialect understood by both the employer and household helpers.

SB No. 8 proposes the activation of a “Migrant Workers Hospital” exclusively for overseas Filipino workers and their dependents. The hospital shall be under the supervision and control of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

SB No. 9 calls for a nationwide barangay nutrition program.

SB. No. 10 strengthens Republic Act 4670, otherwise known as the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers through the introduction of the following amendments: payment of salaries of teachers as well as non-teaching personnel on a monthly basis regardless of semestral or summer vacations; increasing teachers’ salaries to mitigate the effects of inflation; and giving gratuity benefits to teachers and non-teaching personnel who choose to retire before reaching the compulsory retirement age of 60 years.

Loren has also passed several resolutions. One urges President Aquino to further adjust the existing Compensation and Position Classification System of the uniformed personnel in the military service, the police establishment and the teachers and nurses in the government service by increasing their compensation to two salary grades higher than what they are currently receiving.

A fourth resolution asks the DILG and DBM secretaries to address the issues regarding the appropriation of funds for the grant of mandated benefits to barangay officials.

P. S. Resolution No. 5 insures the safety of school children during earthquakes.

 Loren urged her colleagues in the Chamber “to help me push for the immediate passage of these bills because these represent solutions to the problems of the vulnerable sectors of society.”

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