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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Council examines rate hike amid mass outage bid
By Stephen Capillas
THE City Council will investigate reports of a provisional P.27 increase granted by the Energy Regulatory Board (ERB) to the Napocor and call on the Cagayan de Oro Electric Power and Light Co. (Cepalco) for a deferral of its power rate increase beyond December this year.
Councilor Jose Benjamin Benaldo said this in a phone interview even as he revealed that he will discuss "some important issues" with ERC Commissioner for Mindanao Oliver Butalid about the power rate increases.
He also said a massive power blackout would occur in Mindanao and in some parts of the country from 7:30 p.m. to sometime past 8:00 p.m. as part of a nationwide protest against a reported impending 100 percent power rate hike.
Elsewhere in Mindanao several power firms are imposing their own power rate increases on their customers. The Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative (Aneco) started to collect a P4.58 charge to its costumers starting last Nov. 1.
The rate is up from Aneco's P3.198 kilowatt per hour charge it collects from its more than its 90,000 consumers in Butuan City alone not including its Agusan del Norte costumers.
Meanwhile the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) removed the inter-class cross subsidies for customers of Iligan Light and Power Inc. (Ilpi) and La Union Electric Company (Lueco).
The removal was decided upon in a meeting held by the ERC last October 27 and will run for three years starting with the November 2004 billing cycle.
Impact
The cross subsidy removal is equally spread over the three-year period.
The agency said the removal of inter-class cross subsidies at one-third per year will result in initial rate increases to residential customers of P0.0950/kWh and the industrial customer class by P0.0409/kWh.
However commercial customers will enjoy an initial rate reduction of P0.0205/kWh while bulk power customers will have a P0.1085/kWh reduction and flat rate customers would have a P0.0741/kWh decrease.
Meanwhile Benaldo said he will ask updates on the P.27 increase provided to Napocor and how it would impact on the local utilities especially Cepalco.
He also said the 100 percent increase would amount to around P1.10 for Napocor.
The councilor though said he isn't all that worried about this because under the law the ERC will have to hold a public hearing on this.
"There is that insistence that the hearing would be held by the Mindanao power bloc and other sectors because it is of utmost urgency...Also we would ask questions on some issues that would have an impact on the power rate hikes," Benaldo said.
The councilor said they will also call on Cepalco representatives in this afternoon's session to voice their appeal for an extension of their power rate deferral.
Meanwhile according to Aneco finance Manager Rodolfo Ranoco, the latest power rate increase was due to the Napocor's rate increase, which they would pass to their consumers.
Ranoco said the recent increase doesn't include the taxes being collected by the local government units to Aneco.
The Butuan City Government alone is collecting P31-M uncollected taxes the power firm incurred since 1994 while the Agusan del Norte provincial government claimed Aneco also owed them P15-M uncollected taxes.
Ranoco projected that the millions of pesos taxes to be collected from them by the LGUs will result to another increase of about 12% from the current power rates which they will start collecting from the consumers by next month.
Butuan consumers complained over DXBR Radyo Bombo Butuan anchored by Erwin Dano expressed dismay over Aneco's second round of power rate hikes.
(November 8, 2004 issue)
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