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Friday, March 29, 2024

AGHAM welcomes SC ruling on Meralco rates

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The Alyansa ng mga Grupong Haligi ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Mamamayan commended the Supreme Court for upholding the Energy Regulatory Commission’s order allowing Manila Electric Co. to stagger the collection of automatic rate adjustments arising from generation costs for November 2013.

“The SC decision balances industry stakeholders’ interests. It also reflects the High Court’s modesty in recognizing the ERC’s mandate of protecting consumers as it determines and regulates power rates,” AGHAM president Angelo Palmones said in a statement. 

Palmones said that based on the decision, the ERC acted within its regulatory powers and could not be accused of grave abuse of discretion.  He said the court also recognized that the ERC protected consumers’ interests when it allowed the staggered recovery of the adjustment charges and denied the request for carrying costs.

He said the SC upheld the importance that participants in the power sector could rely on the applicability of certain rules when the circumstances call for their application.

“The decision promotes stability that empowers ERC to exercise its regulatory power consistent with its mandate to protect the interests of consumers without compromising the industry’s ability to continuously provide sufficient power to support the country’s growing power requirements,” Palmones said.

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An infrastructure-oriented think tank urged the Marcos administration to mitigate the impact of the SC  decision on consumers.

“The new government should first determine whether collusion and price-fixing among power generators occurred in the electricity spot market during that period and beyond. This should be resolved prior to any implementation of the SC decision,” Infrawatch PH convenor Terry Ridon, one of the petitioners in the SC decision, said.

“If there is no finding of collusion or price-fixing, the President should ensure the least impact of the price hike to affected customers, such as ordering a longer payment period instead of the original two-tranche schedule. This is a realistic intervention, as we had already experienced similar government action during the pandemic lockdowns,” he said.

Ridon said the ERC in 2020 directed distribution utilities to implement a staggered payment scheme amid the coronavirus lockdown.

“Electricity bills during this period were amortized in four equal monthly installments after the end of the enhanced community quarantine. With current inflation hovering at 6.1%, similarly ordering longer staggered payments to implement the SC decision will ease the burden of affected customers,” he said.

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