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Villagomez favors interim fuel surcharge fee
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Posted on Nov 17 2004
House Vice Speaker Timothy Villagomez is amenable to the imposition of an interim fuel surcharge fee, essentially putting the bigger burden on the government in terms of subsidy.
Villagomez, who also chairs the House Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications, said in an interview yesterday that an interim FSF would mean keeping the current rate for residential users while imposing a 1 cent surcharge fee on commercial users and 2.5 cents for government users.
“This is a form of [government] subsidy,” he said.
The CUC currently charges residential and government users a flat rate of 11 cents per kilowatt hour and 16 cents for commercial consumers.
Under its plan, CUC wants to impose at least 3.5 cents per kwh across the board to cushion the effect of skyrocketing prices of fuel.
Villagomez said he supports the concept of FSF but does not agree with the method with which CUC intends to implement the proposal.
“I’ve always been an advocate of having a fuel surcharge rate. What is surprising and I’m not in agreement with is having this methodology of [implementing] this huge increase on a one-time basis,” said Villagomez, a former CUC executive director.
He noted that an FSF should not be perpetual. “It should only go for a time—an interim.”
The lawmaker, at the same time, proposed that the CUC set up an escrow account specifically for FSF collections.
“Come out with an escrow account. Keep that extra money in escrow. If the fuel price goes down, this [money] goes back to the general funds,” he said.
This approach, he indicated, would prevent CUC from using the FSF collection for its operations. Lawmakers earlier doubted that CUC’s implementation of the FSF would only go to the payment of fuel.
CUC earlier said that it had been forced to use its operations funds to purchase fuel partly due to the government’s failure to pay its utilities, an argument that is refuted by the government.
Meantime, Villagomez said he has met with Finance Department officials and CUC board chair Frank Guerrero to discuss his proposals.
“We’re brainstorming to see how we can address the situation,” he said.
