The Freedom from Debt Coalition-Visayas is urging the national government to stop its plan to sell the Independent Power Producer Administration Contract of the Unified Leyte Geothermal Power Plant, it said in its press release recently.

It said it believes the plan will result in rising electricity rates in the Visayas primarily in Eastern and Central Visayas. The island of Negros and Panay, and even some part of the Bicol Region in Luzon will also be affected, it said.

The press release said that last October 4, the state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. has bidded out the IPPA covering the 640-megawatt ULGPP.

PSALM has divided the capacity of the ULGPP into 384MW and 255MW as two separate bids, the 40 percent (25MW) is now being offered to various electric cooperatives, while the larger chunk will be offered to the “big boys” of the power industry, it said.

The press release also said that FDC-Visayas fears that the corporate privatization of the IPPA contract will only result to an additional burden for the consumers because corporate entities will run the utility as profit-generating endeavors rather than as a service being provided to the public.

It cited the experience of the public in Negros Occidental when Green Core Geothermal, Inc., entered into a power sales agreement with Central Negros Electric Cooperative in December 2011.

After the agreement, instead of providing clean, reliable and affordable electricity, several Negrenses were subjected to a 100 percent increase in electricity rates and FDC-Visayas is concerned that the sale of the ULGPP-IPPA contract will only bear the same results, the press release said.

It is clear that after 11 years, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 has not done anything to address the power rates, to provide reliable and secure power supply and to lay the ground for fair competition, the group said.

Instead, it has only allowed the encroachment of big corporations into a public service that the government should ensure the delivery of, thus the need to repeal it is only magnified, their press release added.*CGS

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