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By Maricel V. Cruz Reporter
The clamor for a congressional
investigation into the alleged price manipulation in the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market (WESM) by officials of the National Power
Corp. (Napocor) and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities
Management (PSALM) Corp. has gained support from progressive
militant legislators.
Rep. Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis
opposed the plans of the state-run PSALM to secure P9 million in
payment from the WESM and at the same time warned that electricity
rates in the Philippines will continue to rise and continue to be
among the highest in the world so long as the debts and liabilities
of the Napocor and of PSALM remain unsettled.
Nationalista Party-United
Opposition Rep. Teofisto Guingona 3rd of Bukidnon, in a privilege
speech, disclosed that a month ago, Psalm wrote the Wesm demanding
the payment of P9 billion for the price of electricity that was sold
in September and October 2006, in view of the fact that they were
caught by WESM dictating and manipulating the price.
Guingona said that if PSALM gets
the P9 million, there will be an automatic P2 increase in
electricity bills of consumers.
“This is power play between the
PSALM and the WESM, but the loser will not be WESM if it gives in to
PSALM demands—it will be the consumers,” Beltran explained.
“A year after its creation, the
WESM has been exposed as nothing more but yet another
instrumentality of the electricity monopolies to justify increases
in electricity rates. The WESM has been pathetically useless in
curbing the unconscionable and greedy profiteering of the
electricity monopolies. The PSALM, being a partially privatized
agency, has no goal in mind but keeping the profits of its investors
up. As for the WESM, it’s deliberately helpless in refusing the
likes of PSALM, the Napocor and the independent power producers from
manipulating rates,” Beltran explained.
In one year of WESM’s
operation, only the first two months resulted in lower prices,
Beltran recounted.
This happened when WESM started
in June and when President Arroyo delivered her State of the Nation
Address in July 2006, announcing a reduction in power rates.
Generation rates in WESM after that shot up to 500 percent or
higher.
“Most consumers had already to
shoulder the exorbitant generation charges since last year and the
recent blow was the P1.25/kWh increase in our electricity bills last
July,” Beltran noted.
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