NAGKAISA
PRESS RELEASE
25 January 2014
Asserting its position that recent price hikes
in electricity market were the result of wrong commercial decision and
regulatory failure, the labor coalition Nagkaisa called on Malacanang to apply
step 3 of President Aquino’s declared position on power hike.
“Rectifications must be done outright on the
P4.15/kWh Meralco hike, not on future occurrences of similar nature,” said
Wilson Fortaleza, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) spokesperson and one of the
convenors of Nagkaisa labor coalition.
Corrective steps were announced by Malacanang
yesterday, amid the heightening controversy on Meralco’s sharp generation rate
hike for the November - December billing period.
Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma
explained that under Step 1, preparations should be made to for foreseeable
events such as regular maintenance. Step 2 is to ensure that regulators prevent
collusion. And Step 3 will ensure that unjust price hikes are not passed on to
and borne by the consumers.
“The test for Malacanang right now is whether
it can apply Step 3 to the Meralco case and prevent the same in the future by
applying Step 1 and 2,” said Fortaleza.
Nagkaisa said that if this can be done
outright, it will erase the suspicion that investigations at the Executive and
Legislative levels are leading to the exoneration of private players, pin the
blame to the system operator, and subsidize the cost of market failure from the
Malampaya fund.
The group is opposed to Malampaya subsidizing
market failure as this is tantamount to subsidizing fraud. Labor groups
contend that risks borne out of wrong commercial decisions must be at no cost
to consumers.
Workers had been protesting the power hikes on
the belief that they were caused by flawed policies under EPIRA.
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