THE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry calls for the Department of Energy and Energy Regulatory Commission to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling imposing a temporary restraining order on the two government agencies’ recent rulings and policies affecting Retail Competition and Open Access.
PCCI, one of the four petitioners seeking a relief from the SC against the issuance from DoE/ERC, is pleased with the timely ruling to temporary hold the DoE circular, which the Chamber finds “disadvantageous” to electricity consumers.
George Barcelon, PCCI president, stressed that their group is strongly advocating for the government to implement measures to make the country’s power sector competitive in the Asean region.
“One of the Chamber’s advocacies is for the current administration to look at power sector as an area for improvement to make the country competitive in the Asean region,” Barcelon said in a television interview.
Philippines have one of the highest power costs today which significantly affects competitiveness of local companies in Asean region.
The DoE and ERC Resolutions mandated that customers who consume more than 1 MW and 750 kW of power to discard their current suppliers, even if it means accepting more expensive power supply.
“I don’t remember we were consulted on the issue,” he added.
PCCI supports the SC TRO as it empowers member companies to decide on their own, whether they would like to become contestable customers and buy their power from the RES licensed by ERC or from the Local RES.
Barcelon said PCCI member companies will be forced to buy their power only from 23 retail electricity suppliers accredited by ERC.
The Local RES, who were previously allowed by the Epira to sell power to contestable customers, were disallowed by the ERC and were ordered to wind down their operations.
PCCI’s concern, together with the three other petitioners, is that ERC is limiting their choices, which is clearly in violation of the supposed ‘free market play.’
Barcelon calls for the ERC to review their rulings and realize that limiting the choice of the consumers is unhealthy. He added that the ERC regulation is not provided in the Epira of promoting open access.
“As a business, the denominator for us to improve is that we have to be competitive and should be allowed to choose so that … the players compete among themselves to give us better service and price point,” Barcelon said.
The PCCI president said that the Chamber and its members were caught by surprise when the ruling came out just a few days before the deadline set by ERC.
The Chamber is open to discussion with the ERC to resolve the issue.
“We hope the ERC to at least tweak the issue that would benefit the consumers. They failed to see the downside of ‘tying the hands of the user’ which only results in the consumers paying higher rates.”