A Philippine consumer advocacy group on Tuesday urged the government to prevent electricity rate hikes and impose tougher penalties on energy companies after widespread grid failures triggered rotating brownouts across Luzon and the Visayas last week.
The Power for People Coalition (P4P) called on Energy Secretary Sharon Garin to ensure that consumers would not bear additional costs from the red and yellow alerts raised by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
“The Department of Energy should take the lead in ensuring that no rate hikes will happen as a result of the red and yellow alerts. The national government has the mandate to implement this especially now that we are in an ongoing energy emergency,” said Gerry Arances, P4P convenor.
NGCP raised red and yellow alerts after two transmission lines connected to major gas-fired power plants tripped while several coal plants went on forced outage. The disruptions led to rotating brownouts in several areas, including communities within the Meralco franchise.
P4P warned that consumers could still face higher electricity bills despite government assurances that the outages would not affect rates.
“Spot market rates have already increased 121.85 percent on a month-on-month comparison between April and May 2026 so far,” Arances said.
He added that the impact could be significant for Meralco consumers because four of the plants that failed during the outages have supply contracts with the utility.
“That is more than 40 percent of total committed capacity in the Meralco franchise area either gone or unable to meet its pledged delivery during the days the alerts were raised,” he said.
Distribution utilities such as Meralco buy electricity from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) when contracted power plants fail to supply committed capacity. Prices in the spot market typically rise during supply shortages and periods of high demand.
The coalition also called for investigations by regulators and Congress into the recurring grid alerts and outages.
“A full investigation into the red, yellow alerts should also be pursued both by the energy agencies and Congress. Stronger penalties should be enforced for companies responsible for the rotating brownouts – whether in the generation or transmission side,” Arances said.
P4P noted that the Energy Regulatory Commission fined 14 generation companies about PHP 60 million in 2023 for exceeding allowable outage days, but argued that the penalties have failed to prevent repeated disruptions.
“It is becoming clear that these fines are no longer enough as accountability measures for these energy companies,” Arances said. “The government should utilize every available recourse to ensure this does not happen again especially as we enter a Super El Niño.”
