I don’t want to take sides on the current MERALCO overcharging issue that is facing the nation right now. But what I can chime in is that after all the evidences, accusations and name calling has occurred, I would hope to see that one of the outcomes of this legislative investigation is the passage of the Philippine Renewable Energy Bill, or at least a desire to put up more renewable energy power plants instead of fossil fuel based ones.
One of the issues raised was that MERALCO was charging VAT for electricity bought off of renewable energy sources from the National Grid. In the current law, only fossil fuel based power plants will be charged a Value Added Tax.
When you think about it. With a lot of power plants in the country running on Fossil Fuels, we are very much at the mercy of rising world fuel prices. Power producers have no control therefore of the electricity rates going up. What we should be doing is weening ourselves off of these fossil fuel based power plants by switching to cheaper electricity sources.
With our bad experience in implementing a Nuclear Power Plant for the Philippines. It seems that the only hope to reduce energy rates, without getting much political flack, is to go hard for renewable energy.
Category: Law, Clean Energy
