Sunday, August 15, 2004 Power rates up By Clara Mae Hortelano
ENERGY Regulatory Commission approved National Power Corporation's rates adjustment of P0.0770 per kilowatt-hour, P0.1192 per kWh and P0.0727 kWh, respectively.
Tagged as "one-time" charges, the rates adjustments were supposedly reflected in the consumers' January, February and May 2004 billings.
However, due to the Energy Regulatory Commission's delay in the release of the order, the rates adjustment will be reflected only in August to October power consumption.
Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) management is constrained to recover the increases by passing them on to the consumers.
Maria Nena Reyes, Ceneco Management Information System Division chief and concurrent Metering and Billing Section head, said they opted not to include the three consecutive power rates adjustment charges to the firm's Generation Charge but only in the Other Charges Adjustment in the form of the NPC Adjustment Charge.
"We separated the adjustment charge from the Generation Charge because it has a different computation. These are the rates that were already imposed by NPC to us in the stated (January, February, May) months," she said.
Reyes explained the rates adjustment is only a one-time charge, which means that the January rates adjustment will be imposed in the consumers' August 2004 billing based on their January power consumption; the February rates adjustment in the September 2004 billing based on the February power consumption; and the May 2004 rates adjustment to be imposed in the October billing based on the May power consumption of power consumers.
After October, said Reyes, no NPC Adjustment Charge will be effected, however, if the NPC would impose another rates increase, there could be corresponding power hike as well.
"Hopefully there is none," Reyes added.
Ariel Guides, spokesperson of power group Powerwatch, said the series of power rates increase is unbearable.
Guides also said consumers could do nothing with the ERC's decision.
However, they are bent to conduct a drastic action by pressuring the 13th Congress to abolish the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) that they said is the root cause of the never-ending power rate hike.
Roberto Montelibano, Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry president, said the series of power rates adjustments will lead them to reassess the rates of their production costs.
Montelibano further said every time a rates increase is effected, businesses such as ice plants, restaurants, hotels and cold storages, are among those that are greatly affected.
"The increase on the firms' cost of production depends on their component, but definitely everybody in the business sector is affected by it," he said.
Montelibano suggested that at this crucial economic time, everybody must know how to conserve energy.
"Everybody from the residential to commercial power consumers must learn how to conserve energy. In that way we can learn how to reduce power consumption and at the same time save money," he added.
On the other hand, Fr. Aniceto Buenafe, chairman of the Diocese of Bacolod's Social Action Center, told Sun.Star bacolod they are opposing the series of power rate adjustment of Ceneco.
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