Trillanes warns Meralco of ‘wrath of the people’
Senator Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Antonio Trillanes IV scoffed Wednesday at the Manila Electric Co.’s warning of power outages if it fails to pay power generation costs, warning the Senate would call out the “wrath of the people” on the power distributor.
Trillanes said that Meralco should not be making any such threats because there was sufficient power supply.
“There’s enough supply. So we’re not expecting any shortage to cause brownouts in the next few months,” Trillanes told reporters in reaction to Meralco’s arguments during oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
“However, if they would dare to do so, as a blackmail to the Supreme Court and the government, then we will call all of its owners and make them face the wrath of the people,” Trillanes added.
He was referring to the Senate inquiry into the record-high P4.15 per kilowatt hour power rate adjustment that Meralco was to collect from its 5.3 million customers to pay for at least P9.6 billion in additional generation costs before it was restrained by the high court.
At the oral arguments on the petition asking the Supreme Court to stop the power rate increase, Meralco lawyer Victor Lazatin warned that the temporary restraining order or TRO would disrupt the power supply chain if it was not lifted soon.
Lazatin said Meralco owed the generating companies P11 billion to P12 billion but this has ballooned to P18 billion in view of the high rates in the spot market. He said the P18-billion collection deficiency involved the December and January billing periods.
As the unpaid suppliers stop delivering fuel to the power generation companies, these companies would stop generating and delivering power to Meralco. Meralco would then have insufficient power and would be forced to ration power, resulting in blackouts, he said.
While power supply was sufficient “for now,” the demand would increase in the summer months by as much as 17 percent in April. In the end, the economy would suffer from the rotating brownouts, the lawyer said.
After the Malampaya natural gas pipeline went on a scheduled maintenance shutdown from November 11 to December 10, which overlapped with the shutdown of a number of generating plants, Meralco said it was forced to source electricity at a much higher rate in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market or WESM because of the power shortage.
The simultaneous shutdowns created a 45-percent shortfall in the average 6,000 megawatts that Meralco supplies to customers.
The Senate energy committee opened an inquiry into the possibility the higher power rates were the result of collusion among the power generation and distribution companies.
Should the high court sustain Meralco’s power rate adjustment, Trillanes said he would push for the passage of a bill expanding the use of the Malampaya Fund “to absorb the effects” of the power rate increase.
“In the first place, the idea emanated from the President. I just operationalized the idea into an actual bill,” he said.
The Malampaya Fund consists of the government’s share of revenues from the sale of natural gas from the Malampaya gas fields off the west coast of Palawan province and taxes.
Trillanes filed Senate Bill 2049 proposing that the Malampaya Fund also be used to finance the maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement of energy infrastructure either in preparation for, or in response to calamities.
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