Compliance

SOMEONE

(I have forgotten who), said that real news is what someone does not want you to print.

By this definition, there is plenty of news in the Lapsus Calami column. I am less enamoured with articles by a named journalist which in fact is very substantially (90-100 percent) simply a press release from a well-known company. The business sections of our national broadsheets are full of such space-fillers. It is preferable when a journalist makes an appropriately cynical interpretation of the company’s rosy-glow puffery.

A recent example came from obtained and 100 percent. This gives Global Business Power (GBP) praising an indication of the degree of non- itself for two of its subsidiaries Panay compliance of companies operating Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) in conjunction with WESM. and Cebu Energy Development On this basis, PEDC has a non- Corp. ( CEDC) for complying with compliance rating of 1.28 percent Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (100 percent less 98.72 percent) and (WESM) rules and regulations. CEDC is 6.08 percent (100 percent

PEDC topped the list of coal- less 93.92 percent) non-compliant. fired generators with the highest CEDC, therefore, is approaching compliance rating by the Philippine five times more non-compliant than Electricity Market Corp. ( PEMC) PEDC. It would seem, therefore, that with a rating of 98.72 percent for GBP should carry out an audit of CEDC the period covering June 2019 to to establish why it is significantly June 2020. worse that PEDC in terms of WESM

CEDC was also praised because it compliance. had a rating of 93.92 percent. For us, the end-users of electricity,

I suppose that when we see WESM is one of the few bright spots ratings of over 90 percent, we think in what is a difficult area where in terms of students’ scores in school meeting the public interest is low assessments where anything over 90 on the list of priorities of those from percent is deemed to be excellent. whom we buy our electricity.

My assessment is based on This is not a happy state of affairs the difference between the mark when we, in practice, have no choice as to where we buy our electricity. Furthermore, electricity being a product which is essential, we are entitled to expect that those who administer the industry are effective in curtailing aspects which may put the end-user at a disadvantage.

From 1- 15 October 2020, the average price that the local electricity supplier paid WESM was P2.19 per kilowatt-hour. Most local suppliers, with the support of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) have largely ignored WESM and, instead, have entered into disadvantageous bilateral contracts, not demonstrably in the public interest, in which end users pay, typically over P10 per kWh.

We recommend a thorough audit, to be carried out by the Commission on Audit ( COA), to engender fair electricity prices to the hapless consumers./

This is not a happy state of affairs when we, in practice, have no choice as to where we buy our electricity.