Leftwing groups stage lights-out protest against EPIRA
By Jeannette Andrade
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:28:00 06/09/2008
Filed Under: Protest, Electricity Production & Distribution
MANILA, Philippines -- Militants and residents of a squatter community in Quezon City participated in a lights-out rally to commemorate the 7th year of the passage of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) and to express their outrage over the high electricity rates.
At exactly 7 p.m., darkness covered households along Agham Road in Sitio San Roque, Barangay (Village) Bagong Pag-asa in North Triangle, while members of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and groups opposed to what they called unjustified electricity rates staged a noise barrage.
The community is several meters away from the National Power Corp.
Among their demands is the removal of the 12 percent Expanded Value-Added Tax (EVAT) on power rates charged to households and on oil.
"It has been seven years since the EPIRA was enacted into law. The promises of lower rates have not been felt. The so-called benefits have not materialized. Because of the EPIRA, the power sector has somehow mutated into a complicated, profit-driven enterprise," the group BAYAN said in a statement.
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