In the July 27, 2026 State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., one of the most applauded portions of his speech was his declaration that he will make sure that systems loss will be eliminated from the charges imposed on electric power consumers.
He challenged Congress to amend the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) so that systems loss will not be charged to consumers.
The President may have made a promise he cannot fulfill. He will find out that the promise is not for him to give and fulfill; the owners of power plants have to decide, under existing law, whether they can absorb the cost or not.
The President called for the amendment of the EPIRA Law because the executive department does not have the power to impose requirements or conditions that are contrary to law. Given the workload of Congress, this will take a long time to accomplish.
His pronouncement sounded as if the system loss charge can be eliminated soon after his speech. But it cannot. It may look like the charge is not in the bill anymore, but it is. The question will be: how to hide it without the public knowing it is still there?
System's loss is in the vicinity of 4 to 8 percent of the cost of electricity. Can that percentage of income be stricken off the books without making the Electric Cooperatives and the owners of power plants incur a substantial loss?
The pronouncement, while sounding great, placed Sec, Sharon
Garin in a corner. In fact, she immediately searched for a way out by saying that the system loss can be reduced, but it would be more difficult to address the more technical issues. Thus, the main question is: given that the power lost in the system is power that must be paid for, who will pay for this?
There must be other ways of reducing electricity cost without depending on the elimination of a charge that cannot be eliminated in the first place.
This is the challenge to the Sec. of Energy and her department, including the Energy Regulatory Commission, which supervises the setting of electricity charges.
The issue is not only about present charges but also the future cost of electricity.
The brownouts occurring all over the country and reports that not enough power is available to meet demand during peak periods are still concerns that the DOE seems unable to address over 4 years into the present administration, to the point that even nuclear energy is now mentioned as a potential source of power for the country.
Perhaps, the President should have said - reduce those system loss charges to the minimum, rather than eliminating them, because doing so is impossible.
When there is not much that can be said to cater to the public, a pronouncement like this is good to hear, but it risks being one of those promises this administration has been unable to fulfill in the last four years.
This brings us to the title above: the difference between eliminating and reducing is CREDIBILITY, or the lack of it.
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