Reaction Paper: OPEMAN Forum by Rocky Gabatin Spentrep AGSB H de la Costa,

Rocky Gabatin

S09 - ENTREP

     The OPEMAN forum was very enlightening and informative. Despite this, I wished that Atty. Layugan had shared more concrete examples and/or personal experiences in relation to the status of the Energy sector. This would have been more appealing for me rather than focusing her lecture on the regulations. For me, the role of ERC is very critical in energy prices, as depicted in the recent intervention of ERC on WESM, so I find it important to understand the current energy issues in relation to how ERC is helping in solving those issues.

Insights into the Power/Energy Outlook in the Philippines - from the Energy Forum by Opeman

These are some of the insights I gathered from the "Empowering Juan" Forum last Monday March 24, 2014 courtesy of MM Opeman group under Prof Arguelles and from the resource persons of ERC, DOE and PCCI (who formerly ran a 400 mW) power barge:

1.  The EPIRA unbundled the power into:   Gencos, Transmission and Grid, DU (Distribution Units - Retailers like Meralco and cooperative and customers.  In other words, Napocor was  privatized. The NG is still paying the subsidized power under Napocor (when they were said to be losing at the rate of P1m/minute)  So when John Galicia asked question on govt buying into Meralco....

Prof Jorge with DOE Secretary Jericho Petilla at Empowering Juan forum of Opeman yesterday March 24, 20

                           Sec Jericho Petilla and Prof Jorge at the Opeman Empowering Juan Forum last night

Makati City, Philippines March 25, 2014

Several key personalities from ERC, DOE, from PCCI were the guest speakers at the Opeman Forum last night at the APS auditorium  One of them was no less than DOE Secretary Jericho Petilla, former governor   of Leyte.  He was simply engaging and very erudite about the power nd energy.

He answered well the query by a French MBA studentnwhy not go nuclear.  The over all impact would be only P0.20 kwh ( 600 megawatt capacity at P2.00/kwh) without considering the perils associaed with meltdown as in TIPPCO in Fukugshima Japan, (Japan is now going solar) and that our future energy sources shall be RE in combinationn with coal and other fossil fuel baseload.

He hinted that China is frustrating our vision for natural gas/energy self sufficiency