Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Tuesday urged state energy regulators to check possible leakages in the lifeline rate subsidies noting how owners of condominium units and resthouses are the ones getting unnecessary discounts, which is supposed to be intended for marginalized consumers.
Gatchalian directed his call to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) during the Senate committee on energy hearing on Senate Bill No. 1583 or the proposed Lifeline Rate Extension bill that seeks to extend for another 20 years the lifeline electricity subsidy rate which is given to low-income households that consume 100 kilowatt-hours (kWh) or less monthly.
“This is the loophole and the gap that I see in this law. Even after 20 years of enactment, unfortunately it seems to me we have given up on this and did nothing to correct it,” Gatchalian told the ERC during the hearing.
Based on his rough estimate, the senator said there was about P937-million out of P2.1-billion in subsidies that were released in 2018 to electricity consumers who are not even part of the marginalized sector.
For the last eight years, the lawmaker said approximately P1.6-billion in subsidies were released annually.
“We have to take note that this P1.6-billion in subsidies are taken from non-lifeline users, including the middle class and the lower middle class,” he lamented.
Nevertheless, the senator said his calculations are still subject to validation and urged the ERC to study his estimates and look into the leakages that have been detected over the years.
Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the ERC agreed that the lifeline rate subsidy should be carefully monitored and that the identification of beneficiaries ought to be more targeted.
“We’ll study this issue very seriously. We’ll commit to have some report on this so we will be able to address these concerns,” Alvin Jones Ortega, head of ERC’s Tariff & Rates Division-Regulatory Operation Service, responded during the hearing.