Malacañang denies defending Meralco power rate hike

May I refer to the article titled “Meralco price hike reasonable, says Palace” (Front Page, 12/5/13) and bylined Christian V. Esguerra. Please allow us to clarify a portion of the story, which may have caused confusion in the public mind.

The lead of the article said: “Malacañang yesterday defended the decision of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to increase its generation charge, saying the rate adjustment of P2 to P3 per kilowatt-hour was neither ‘arbitrary’ nor ‘unreasonable’.” The article was based on my regular press briefing at Malacañang.

There was no instance in the press conference that I said that the Meralco rate hike was “neither ‘arbitrary’ nor ‘unreasonable.’” The entire exchange centered on explaining the mechanisms for the setting of electricity rates, which is governed by the provisions of Republic Act No. 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001.

As Esguerra correctly pointed out in the same story, I emphasized during the press conference that “there are also safeguards placed in the law to protect the rights of consumers if it would be shown that the increase is unreasonable, excessive and not based on the movement of market forces.”

We thank the Inquirer for giving us an opportunity to clarify the matter in the spirit of fairness and accuracy and in line with the pursuit of “balanced news and fearless views”—the guiding tenets of the Inquirer.

—SONNY COLOMA, secretary, Presidential Communications

Operations Office,

Malacañang, Manila

“…’[Y]an pong mga pangyayaring ’yan ay hindi arbitrary, hindi po unreasonable; meron po tayong sinusunod na batas, may sinusunod po tayong proseso.” These were the exact words of Secretary Coloma in response to a question the context of which was the looming increase in generation charge at a time when LPG prices had also gone up and areas in Eastern Visayas were still trying to recover from Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” Secretary Coloma may have missed the context in his own press briefing, but not the journalists who reported, and even live-tweeted, about the same angle.

—CHRISTIAN V. ESGUERRA,

reporter, Inquirer