The Philippine Inquirer's Conrado Banal III confirmed in his
column two days ago what most Pinoys in-the-know have known all along: Napocor has been swindling Philippine consumers. It's been speculated that the government's crusade against Meralco is all about going after their owners, the Lopezes, who happen to own ABS-CBN, the media conglomerate instrumental in televising much of the ZTE scandal, one of the latest in many scandals that has put President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in a bad light (to say the least)."... nobody in Congress takes Napocor to task for the high power rates in this country, which are the second highest in Asia.
Yet the electricity watchdog Energy Regulatory Commission, or ERC, itself already documented the robbery foisted by Napocor upon all overtaxed electricity users in this country.
ERC chair Rodolfo Albano has been saying that Napocor should have cut its electricity rates as a result of the past three years of gains by the peso against the dollar.
And, may I add, that Napocor should have done it a long time ago."
This is not a blind accusation. Such news was posted on the ERC's website two weeks ago:
One of my best friends said it best. GMA picks on Meralco because it's privately owned, not on Napocor which is state-owned. Hmm, I wonder why?"The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) directed the National Power Corporation (NPC) in a Show Cause Order dated 07 May 2008 to explain its failure to file its applications under the Generation Rate Adjustment Mechanism (GRAM) and the Incremental Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (ICERA) for the period covering July 2006 to March 2008. The ERC has estimated a deferred accounting adjustment (DAA) of Ten Billion Pesos (PhP10,000,000,000.00) which translates to 20 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) over-recovery for the said period.
"NPC's non-filing of their GRAM and ICERA applications is a violation of Sections 5 of both Implementing Rules for the GRAM and for the ICERA. The ERC hopes that the NPC will take expedient action on this matter to safeguard public interest," ERC Officer-in-Charge Alejandro Z. Barin said."
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