ILOILO City – The Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca) defended its member distribution utilities, specifically those from Palawan and Iloilo, against the remarks of President Rodrigo Duterte.
During his visit to Palawan on Nov. 4, Duterte warned energy players in Palawan and Iloilo that the government will expropriate and take over their services for “failure to solve energy concerns in their respective provinces.”
While the electric cooperatives in Palawan and Iloilo were not specified, Duterte said these coops were “not able to keep up with the energy demand” in their franchise areas.
He said when Palawan was developed into a big community, “the cooperative cannot keep up with progress.”
Philreca, an association of 121 electric cooperatives, clarified that while some electric cooperatives have had challenges in operations, “there are other concerns that fall outside the ambit of control and power of a distribution utility.”
“The power supply chain is composed of many stakeholders – the generation and supply, transmission, distribution, and even the regulatory and support agencies of the government,” said Philreca in a statement.
The association added that the challenges included instability and unreliability of power supply due to transmission line issues vegetation, circuit breaker and cut jumper concerns.
Other non-technical concerns were delays in the approval and implementation of capex projects as well as operational challenges brought about by the pandemic.
In the case of Iloilo, Philreca did not see any problems in terms of the capacity of the electric cooperatives to distribute electricity.
It explained that the temporary spike in power rates that affected member-consumers in Region 6 was due to the damaged submarine cable of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).
Meanwhile, the energy concerns experienced by residents of Palawan, according to Philreca, are sometimes beyond the control of Palawan Electric Cooperative (PALECO).
This goes to “as far as bureaucratic inefficiencies within energy regulatory agencies,” it added.
In a congressional hearing conducted by the Committee on Energy of the House of Representatives, Philreca said resource speakers raised other concerns such as reliability and stability of power supply, or promptness of approval of Terms of Reference for Competitive Selection Process including the Power Supply Agreement.
The association explained that the government, specifically the Department of Energy, has a big role to play in ensuring reliability and stability of power supply as mandated in Republic Act No. 7638, or the Department of Energy Act of 1992.
“The electric cooperative as distribution utility can and will distribute electricity to consumers, but in the absence of government support to augment generation capacity by inviting investors, which is beyond the control of distribution utilities like electric cooperatives, the public will eventually be affected,” added Philreca.
The group added that the “ECs are mere collection agents” of power suppliers and the government for certain taxes.
“The increases in electricity rate are actually the increases in generation charges,” it said.
With regards to the President’s remark that other parties – private players who have the capital and experience – could be tapped to address power concerns, Philreca said doing so “might not solve the problem, but rather worsen it.”
“Private and profit-oriented corporations are built that way – they operate as long as they would recuperate its investments and will have enough profit for its owners, which means that if they replace the electric cooperatives, there is a huge chance that electricity prices will increase,” the group said.
“We call on government regulatory agencies to fulfill their mandate and support all power players as much as they can because addressing energy concerns cannot be resolved by any single electric cooperative nor by any power operator alone,” Philreca added./PN
