ADB official says RP power reform law sufficient
Donnabelle L. Gatdula
Philippine Star
The Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) can work in its existing form, an official from a multilateral financing institution said.
“Broadly speaking, we can work with the existing EPIRA,” Asian Development Bank (ADB) deputy director general for South Asia Thomas Crouch told reporters at the sidelines of the Energy Summit.
Crouch warned that there are risks that could result from changes in policies and laws.
“There is always a risk attending to that if a piece of existing legislation is broadly working and is put back on the floor to be reopened and then many issues may be reopened and maybe hostage to some political process. So that is a risk that needs to be acknowledged, then recognized. And then you need some trade-offs. Can you work with the existing EPIRA? Or are we really wanting to fix every little piece of it? Or do we want to run the risk?” he said.
Crouch said there are also factors that may warrant changes in policies and rules.
“Generally, any piece of legislation can bear revisiting for two reasons: there may have gaps in the original piece of legislation that needs some fixing cause they may have been overlooked when the legislation was formulated, and secondly conditions might change,” he said.
In the case of the EPIRA, he said there is nothing wrong with studying if the law needs to be reviewed.
“EPIRA, which was in place since 2001, and with the world has changed and the Philippines has changed — so what it warrants is having a look and seeing if its needs new one or some adjusting it in some ways,” he said.
He said EPIRA provides a robust framework. “We support the thrust of the EPIRA and its approach in the restructuring of the power industry — specifically the privatization and largely there because if you could not fix the power sector, then you would not be able fix the physical imbalance.”
Crouch said ADB also supports the goal of the EPIRA. “The privatization that’s going on, the sale of assets and the recycling of those funds to pay down debt in the power sector is a very important part of the overall macroeconomic strategy. So that’s why we have been supporting the EPIRA and the restructuring of the power sector, and not just the power sector itself, but also equally perhaps more importantly from the macroeconomic stability point of view. So that’s where we’re coming from. And another major thrust is through the strengthening of the regulatory environment and the WESM — to make it a more conducive for private sector participation,” he said.
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