Lawmakers have sought a congressional inquiry whether the Energy Regulation Commission was remiss in its regulatory oversight task in allowing the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to raise its transmission charges.
In filing House Resolution 953, Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said the matter, in turn, had triggered the “unexplainable surge’ in electricity rates at this time when consumers are grappling with the economic pain unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Villafuerte, one of the authors of the resolution, urged the House committee on good government and public accountability to look into “the recent unexplainable surge in power rates” when “millions have lost their income and are struggling to survive” in the face of the global health crisis spawned by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) outbreak.
He added the inquiry is also for the chamber to find out if the NGCP could be “obligated to refund” to electricity consumers an estimated over-recovery of P53.3 billion from 2016 to 2020 by way of lower power rates—based on the country’s lower Risk Free Rate and other factors such as depreciation that were supposed to have reduced investors’ interest rate from 10% in 2010 to just four percent in 2015.