Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday said she finds it “unacceptable” that the privately-owned National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) continues to enjoy soaring profits despite its failure to maintain “brownout-free" operation of the grid.
Hontiveros expressed her sentiment following the recent power outages that have affected at least one million households in Luzon.
Therefore, the senator said, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) should make sure to “leave no stone unturned” in its investigation of the recent decision of the NGCP to place the Luzon grid on yellow and red alerts.
“Ang laki-laki ng binabayaran ng konsyumer sa kuryente pero taon-taon na lang silang namomroblema sa paulit-ulit na brownout (Consumers have been paying high electricity bills, but every year they get they always have to worry about rotating blackouts),” Hontiveros lamented.
“Ang laki-laki ng kinikita ng NGCP pero puro sablay naman ang kanilang serbisyo (NGCP is getting huge profits but their service is disappointing). It is time for our regulatory agencies to really hold NGCP accountable for failing to keep its promise of improving its services to the public,” she said.
In previous Senate hearings, she pointed out executives of the NGCP have committed to work on important reforms which would help address various problems that caused forced outages and rotating blackouts in the country.
The senator said NGCP should at least provide Congress updates about the firm contracts for ancillary services which should have been one of the several policy and programs that will provide solutions and further lessen the power supply issues.
“Anyare na, lip service lang ba ito (What happened to that, is this just lip service)?” Hontiveros asked.
She also pointed out that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) allowed the NGCP to implement an interim maximum annual revenue of a whopping P51.471-billion in 2020.
But Hontiveros said she learned that NGCP shareholders were able to receive P187.8-billion worth of corporate dividends in just 10 years of their 25-year contract of running the power grid system under the anomalous and controversial weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
of 15 percent.
“The higher revenue is supposed to help NGCP upgrade—and modernize—its transmission infrastructures—that will make the national grid more stable and reliable. Bakit parang walang nangyayaring reporma maliban sa lalong pagyaman ng mga shareholder ng NGCP (Why is nothing is happening except the fact NGCP shareholders are getting richer)?” she pointed out.
“In fact, NGCP has a total of 127 delayed transmission projects all over the country and only around 36 have been met within schedule. Obviously, aside from the problems coming from the generation sector supply capacities we also have a clear problem in our transmission courtesy of NGCP,” she said.
To this, Hontiveros said she hopes Congress will amend the Electric Power Industry Reform Act or the EPIRA Law to bring about changes in the country’s power grid system.
“There should be an overall review of the power transmission development plan and implementation process as well as the system operation of the power grid. The EPIRA law must be amended to establish a power industry structure that is responsive to the needs of our people and not only providing profits for bad services,” Hontiveros suggested.