Research\n group IBON raised the alarm that proposed amendments to the Public \nServices Act (PSA) removing Constitutional protections on public \nutilities will undermine national security and consumer welfare. The \ngroup argued that foreign control over important sectors should still be\n minimized and that natural monopolies should if anything be more \ntightly regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n Senate identified Senate Bill No. 1754 (SB) amending the PSA as one of \nthe priority bills to be tackled by the upper house before session \ncloses on June 30. The amendments ostensibly update the 82-year-old PSA \noriginally known as Commonwealth Act No. 146. Its counterpart measure \nHouse Bill (HB) No. 5828 was approved on third and final reading in \nSeptember 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n amendments to the PSA significantly narrow the definition of public \nutilities to only cover the distribution of electricity, transmission of\n electricity, and water distribution and sewerage pipeline systems \nunless otherwise provided by law. It also defines the rate of return \nthat investments in public utilities are entitled to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON\n said that the narrow definition of public utilities seeks to bypass the\n current Constitutional limits on foreign ownership of public utilities \nand open up significant parts of the economy to foreign investors. The \nrelaxation of nationality restrictions will mean excessive foreign \ncontrol of critical telecommunications, power and transport utilities. \nThe significant risks to national security and civil defense include \ndigital surveillance and misinformation, denial and sabotage of vital \nservices, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON\n also said that the PSA amendments ensuring \u2018a reasonable rate of \nreturn\u2019 institutionalizes excessive profit-making at the expense of \nconsumers. Utilities tend to be natural monopolies and the amendments \nunfortunately distort so-called regulation towards guaranteeing investor\n profits rather than consumer well-being. IBON said this reinforces \nprofitability as a condition for delivering public services, \nnotwithstanding their nature as very basic necessities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\n it is, privatized utilities have resulted in expensive water and power \nthat is burdensome especially for millions of low-income consumers. \nSince water in Metro Manila was privatized in 1997, water rates have \nincreased 879% in areas covered by the Manila Water Company and 574% in \nthose of Maynilad Water Systems, while consumers continue to be hounded \nby prolonged water interruptions. Meanwhile, power rates in the \nPhilippines are the second highest in Asia at Php8.96\/kwh in 2018, next \nonly to Japan\u2019s Php12.31\/kwh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Incumbent senators have said that there is not enough time for Charter change within the remaining period of the 17th<\/sup> Congress.\n IBON said however that the PSA amendments are in effect a surreptitious\n way to change the Charter\u2019s foreign ownership provisions for public \nutilities that has been attempted many times before by past \nadministrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should it pass SB1754, the 17th<\/sup> Congress\n will affirm itself as a champion of pro-foreign and pro-business \nmeasures. It will have liberalized a key section of the 1987 \nConstitution on top of passing the regressive Tax Reform for \nAcceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) and liberalizing rice imports through\n the rice tariffication law, said IBON. The group also said that \nvigilance will be more important than ever with the new overwhelmingly \nadministration-dominated Senate to come when the 18th<\/sup> Congress opens.###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Research group IBON raised the alarm that proposed amendments to the Public Services Act (PSA) removing Constitutional protections on public utilities will undermine national security and consumer welfare. The group argued that foreign control over important sectors should still be minimized and that natural monopolies should if anything be more tightly regulated. The Senate identified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8039,"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":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[14],"tags":[2025,2027,116,2028,2029,1118,2024,656,2026,941,1944],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8038"}],"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=8038"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8061,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8038\/revisions\/8061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}