The Davao Consumer Movement is giving President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s State of the Nation Address a rating of 5 out of 10. Lasting almost an hour and a half, the speech was long on rhetoric but short on anything actionable.
As a consumer movement, we were anticipating concrete solutions to the issues that affect the people’s daily lives, foremost among them soaring prices of rice and other basic commodities. What we got were generalities that offered no concrete solutions – not even an acknowledgement that the government would continue to work for the President’s campaign promise of P20 per kilo price of rice.
We also find the points on power as lacking in clarity. It leaned more towards infrastructure, particularly interconnection and power generation, and while these are welcome, the pressing issue of the unreliability of a number of electric cooperatives in the country was not addressed.
The President’s SONA was not clear on what the government can do to improve the plight of Filipinos when it comes to poor power services. Case in point is the Northern Davao Electric Cooperative (Nordeco) franchise area where consumers have been suffering from poor power services and high power rates for a very long time.
There seems to be a disconnect between what the President knows or has been fed and what the true power situation is in many parts of the country. It is the same situation with Department of Energy Undersecretary Rowena L. Guevara who seems to think there is ample power in the Island Garden City of Samal despite the frequent blackouts in the area. In both cases, what they think they know is far different from the actual situation on the ground.
Meanwhile, we look forward to the review of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001 which the President set forth. We believe there is a need to review the law to keep up with the times and make it more relevant in the years to come. We hope our lawmakers will take into consideration the need to review the laws and regulations governing electric cooperatives. One that would put emphasis on the needs of the consumers and not the needs of some electric cooperatives' need to stay in power.
Ryan Amper
Convenor
Davao Consumer Movement