Energy consumer group ILAW Pilipinas has called on lawmakers to urgently pass proposed amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) to address high electricity costs in the country, recurring brownouts, and unstable energy supply.
Those conditions, they said, have hindered growth in key industries, disrupted vital services, and undermined the quality of life for millions of Filipinos.
They also called on government officials to “prioritize long-term energy security, not as a crisis-response measure, but as a core component of national development.”
“This means pushing for bold reforms in legislation, infrastructure, and market regulation, while ensuring that no region or sector is left behind in the transition toward a cleaner, more equitable energy future,” it said.
Enacted in 2001, EPIRA reforms and liberalizes the country’s power industry by unbundling it into distinct sectors – generation, transmission, distribution, and supply – to promote greater competition in the electricity market.
President Marcos ordered Congress last year to revisit the law and make the necessary amendments to policies that are not applicable for the present time. One such proposed change is to expand the composition of the Energy Regulatory Commission from five to nine members in a bid to resolve delays.
Even before it became more than 2 decades old, EPIRA had already been targeted for reforms and amendments, emphasizing its defects and the need for fine tuning and improvement. The world has changed significantly since 2001, and technological innovations such as the internet and artificial intelligence have changed and continue to change the world as we know it, the critical power industry included. A revisit of the law to make it more relevant, attuned to the present, and ready for the future should be necessary at this point.*
