ILOILO City – MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) president and chief executive officer Roel Castro is finally seeing some positive development amidst the power crisis affecting the country.
With the recent pronouncement by the Bureau of Internal Revenue removing the value-added tax (VAT) on system loss, Castro welcomed this move even if it is just a portion of a percentage comprising the entire monthly bills of consumers.
“This is a welcome move by the government, especially by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, by removing the VAT on system loss. We have to understand, this is a certain percentage of a certain percentage. We have to be thankful that government acted on this quickly so consumers can realize the reduction as soon as possible,” Castro said.
However, the system loss represents only a small chunk of the problem by the power industry. The daily monitoring of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) shows a decline in power supply from the power generators. Continuous lack of power supply would still result to higher power generation cost.
Castro remained hopeful that power generators would become operational soon and would eventually lessen the burden, especially in the Visayas.
“We are really optimistic na dapat babalik siya. As per DOE (Department of Energy), may babalik ng September. May different dates na nandoon per official. Hopefully the soonest possible time yung baseloads mabalik man lang,” said Castro.
For several weeks, MORE Power, Negros Power and Bohol Light have been bombarded by complaints across all sectors for implementing the manual load dropping (MLD). MLD is mandated by the NGCP to prevent the grid from collapsing due to the lack of supply from the generators.
Despite the widespread information dissemination, Castro admitted that it is the distribution utilities like MORE Power and Negros Power that get the brunt of the complaints.
DOE Secretary Sharon Garin, however, mentioned that the distribution utilities are not at fault for the current situation.
In an interview via DZMM, Garin explained that both the generation and transmission sectors have issues that need to be addressed — not only in relation to the current power situation, but also problems that have existed and should’ve been addressed for the past 10 years.
“No, they receive what they can receive. They try naman. Iba naghahanap ng paraan. Distribution is the least guilty in this place,” said Garin.
Castro remains hopeful that the government inquiries will achieve both viable short-term and long-term solutions for Visayas.
According to the latest collective data released by the DOE and NGCP, Therma Visayas Units 1 and 2 will go back online this September, while the Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) plant and other baseload generation plants in Mindanao are expected to resume operations by end of October. These plants are expected to help stabilize the supply of electricity across the Visayas grid./PN
