Take, for example, R.A. 7941 or the Party-List System Act allocating 20 percent of the seats in Congress to marginalized or underrepresented sectors through their political parties or coalitions. With the a good number of anti-Arroyo congressmen being party-list representatives, it comes as no surprise that this administration and its allies are trying to bastardize R.A. 7491 by fielding their own set of party-list candidates. There are reports that these pro-administration party-list bets are actually conniving with corrupt officials of the Commission on Elections to get the required 2 percent of the total votes cast, allegedly to the tune of P5 per vote.

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Equally ominous are the attempts by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to get around the restrictions of R.A. 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act against contracting additional capacity. Raising the possibility of power shortages soon unless new power generation projects are brought online, Napocor is trying to get both houses of Congress to pass a joint resolution allowing it contract new power sources.

This move is supported by DOE Secretary Raphael Perpetuo Lotilla who has declared that "a joint resolution of Congress has the status of a law and can provide a legal basis for government to contract new capacity… (t)his option requires the favorable endorsement of Mindanao legislators as their constituents are directly affected and the approval of the House of Representatives and the Senate."

It would be a fine thing if such a move was meant purely to ensure an adequate supply of power in Mindanao. But apparently, the move is designed to favor some independent power producers since Napocor has now become an "influence peddler extraordinaire" in their behalf by offering joint long-term power supply contracts to electricity retailers and big users in Mindanao and parts of the Visayas.

Consider the case of Lanao Hydro Development Corp. (LHDC) with whom Napocor is offering hydro-electric based power at an average of P4.32/kilowatt-hour (kwh) as opposed to the current ceiling of P2.1030/kwh that has been in effect since May 2005. That is for a 10-year period beginning 2011. Now, with the cost of hydro-electric power not going up for almost two years now, that futures rate seems very exorbitant even if it were to start in 2011. With both the Napocor and the DOE predicting Mindanao to be facing power shortages after 2009, those high-priced offers look very attractive since distribution utilities have to supply power to their users at any cost. And, that begs the question: Is someone in Napocor making a killing on what appears to be grossly overpriced long-term power contracts?

This would be the case if commissions in one form or another are paid for those very high rates to Napocor executives. Certainly, the residents of Mindanao can expect their electric rates to double by 2011 since they will end up footing the bill for all that electric power. Assuming it stops at P4.32/kwh since the offers also have their escalation clauses. The irony of it all is that we have a very high hydro-electric power potential. Our total identified mini-hydropower resource potential alone is about 1132.476 megawatts (MW) while our 51 existing mini-hydroelectric plants have a combined installed capacity of 82.07 MW or a mere 7.2 percent of the total.

The case of LHDC is in no way unique. Napocor officials have also admitted to signing a similar memorandum of agreement with the local unit of the Korean Power Corp. (KEPCO), which is implementing the 200MW Cebu-Naga coal-fired power plant project jointly with SALCON Power Corp. It also operates the 650 MW Malaya Thermal Power Plant in Pililla, Rizal and the 1,200 MW Ilijan Combined Cycle Power Plant in Ilijan, Batangas.

If you are complaining about how high your electricity bills are now, just wait until the DOE and the Napocor get done with their latest brainchild. We would be very lucky if our electric bills just double by 2011.