ZAMBOANGA CITY – About 33 electric cooperatives in Mindanao jointly filed their petitions with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for guidance and intervention to lessen the “impact of transmission rate increase on ancillary service charge and regulated transmission services” imposed by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to electric cooperatives in Mindanao.

The electric cooperatives asked the ERC to intervene with the NGCP to “spread out their billing on ancillary service charge into six months or one-year time in order for them to lessen the impact of transmission rate increase.”

Earlier, the NGCP had imposed a 66 percent transmission rate increase on ancillary service charge and regulated transmission services to at lest 33 electric cooperatives in Mindanao beginning on billing period of March this year.

Major electric cooperatives in Mindanao – Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco), Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative (Aneco), South Cotabato Electric Cooperative, Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative, and Davao del Sur Electric Cooperative have jointly filed their petitions with ERC chair Zenaida G. Cruz-Ducut seeking her help by interceding in the said crisis, hoping to lessen the impact of transmission rate increase imposed by NGCP.

“We are only asking to give us ample time to pay the additional charges imposed by the NGCP,” cooperative executives said.

Some electric cooperatives are also bent to file a petition in the lower court on the alleged abrupt imposition of transmission cost increase by the NGCP.