The removal of VAT on electricity system loss charges offers limited relief to consumers while doing little to address why Philippine electricity remains among the most expensive in the region, said research group IBON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON acknowledges the estimated Php6 billion in consumer savings, but said that this should not distract from the need to address deeper problems in power generation, transmission and distribution that drive up electricity costs. The measure also means around Php10 billion in foregone government revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, IBON noted how the Php6 billion in estimated consumer savings is actually minuscule measured against Php12.2 trillion in total family income. The group also noted that it is actually not even clear whether the largest beneficiaries are ordinary households and small businesses or higher-volume commercial and industrial users. Foregone revenue of Php10 billion is also small compared to the government\u2019s more than Php4.8 trillion in expected annual revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe small relief that the removal of VAT on system loss charges brings to consumers should not be exaggerated as if this were the solution to expensive electricity,\u201d said IBON Executive Director Sonny Africa. \u201cThe real problem lies in the privatization and profit-driven operation of the power sector itself under the Electricity and Power Industry Reform Act or EPIRA<\/a> Law which oligarchs are profiting from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Marcos Jr. administration appears to be resorting to a populist measure that seeks political credit for lowering electricity bills without confronting the deeper roots of high power costs, IBON said. Rather than take on the powerful oligarchic interests and regulatory arrangements that have long shaped the sector, the government has chosen the administratively and politically easier course of cutting VAT. IBON said genuinely bringing down electricity costs requires deeper structural reforms, including scrapping the EPIRA Law which has failed to ensure competition and cheaper power, replacing the fossil-fuel-dependent electricity system with renewable energy, and ultimately bringing the sector under public ownership and control.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Genuinely bringing down electricity costs requires deeper structural reforms.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[75,4478,19,2972,4423,4475,3367,525,4477],"class_list":["post-19208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-news","tag-electricity","tag-electricity-and-power-industry-reform-act","tag-epira","tag-marcos-jr-administration","tag-philippine-electricity","tag-systems-loss","tag-value-added-tax-2","tag-vat","tag-vat-on-systems-loss-charges","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-25 11:41:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19211,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19208\/revisions\/19211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}