ENCHANTED KINGDOM
brought magic, joy, and hope to its guests as it celebrated the special day of its iconic Storyverse character at Eldar's Birthday Bash on Saturday, July 25, in Santa Rosa, Laguna. The celebration also coincided with the 31st anniversary of the Park’s soft opening.
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DOE, ERC, NEA TACKLING SONA ENERGY REFORMS www.businessmirror.com.ph
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Wednesday, July 29, 2026 Vol. 21 No. 288
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 20 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
By Lenie Lectura
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HE Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), and the National Electrification Administration (NEA) are meeting soon to align strategies on implementing the directive of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to scrap the system loss charge and its corresponding value added tax (VAT) as soon as possible. The public and various groups lauded the Chief Executive’s directive to amend the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001 to ban the collection of system loss charges from utility customers. However, full implementation may take up to a year. “I would say before the next Sona [state of the nation], one year…Regarding the one-year time frame, eliminating the systems loss isn’t something we can achieve simply by declaring it or issuing a policy that says, ‘Stop charging for it.’ We have to address it one step at a time. “We need to tackle both the operational and technical aspects, as system loss involves various types and levels. That’s why it can’t be resolved instantly. Some issues might be resolved sooner, but there are cases where new equipment is genuinely required to significantly reduce or completely eliminate system loss. So, it will take time. I’m just saying that, at most, it would likely take around a year,” said DOE Secretary Sharon Garin in an online news briefing on Tuesday. To put it in motion, the DOE is meeting with the ERC and NEA to execute these electricity consumer reforms. “We are set to meet with ERC and NEA to plan out how to implement this....The DOE and ERC will work on that as mandated by the President to reduce the electricity bills of the people,” said Garin. Meanwhile, ERC said Tuesday that it “affirms its support for policy reforms that place the welfare of electricity consumers at the forefront.” See “Energy,” A2
ON THE RIGHT TRACK An elevated section of the Metro Rail Transit Line 7 (MRT-7) near Mindanao Avenue Station and the project’s depot in Quezon City stands as construction advances on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. In his fifth State of the
Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said 12 of the line’s 14 planned stations are expected to begin operations in 2027, bringing the long-delayed railway closer to service. Once completed, MRT-7 is expected to ease travel between Quezon City and San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, improve connectivity in northern Metro Manila, and help decongest some of the region’s busiest roads as the government pushes its mass transit expansion program. NONOY LACZA
$460B NEEDED TO RENEW OLD Will systems-loss charge ban work? SHIPS, MODERNIZE PORTS–WB By Justine Xyrah Garcia
By Justine Xyrah Garcia
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AST Asia and the Pacific will need more than $460 billion through 2040 to renew aging shipping fleets and modernize ports, investments the World Bank said are critical to keeping trade costs low and regional supply chains competitive. In a report released late Monday, the Washington-based lender estimated that around $280 billion must be invested in new and upgraded vessels, while another $180 billion is needed to expand and modernize port infrastructure between 2025 and 2040. Mobilizing the required capi-
tal will demand coordinated government and private-sector action, backed by policies that give investors greater certainty, according to the report. The scale of investment reflects the maritime sector’s importance to a region that depends heavily on shipping to move goods, connect island economies and support manufacturing and export industries. Maritime trade in East Asia and the Pacific exceeded 6 billion tons in 2025, generating and supporting as much as $3.7 trillion in economic activity, World Bank estimates showed. For every ton of cargo handled by the region’s ports and See “Old ships,” A2
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PROPOSED ban on system-loss charges may fail to lower electricity bills as power distributors could recover the costs elsewhere, the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) warned. FEF President Calixto V. Chikiamco said President Marcos’s proposal may sound appealing to consumers, but system losses cannot simply be eliminated from the cost structure of power distributors. “Prohibiting power firms from passing on the system losses may result in the companies charging consumers in other ways because companies have to achieve a certain return on capital,” Chikiamco told the BusinessMirror. On Monday, Marcos called on Congress to amend the 25-year-
old Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) to prohibit power utilities from passing system-loss charges and the corresponding value-added tax on to consumers. System loss refers to electricity that is generated or purchased by utilities but is not ultimately billed to customers. Some losses occur naturally as electricity travels through transmission and distribution lines, while others result from pilferage, illegal connections and meter tampering. Under Epira, distribution utilities are allowed to recover a regulated portion of these losses from consumers. For households and businesses within the franchise area of the Manila Electric Co., system-loss charges account for about 5 percent of the monthly electricity bill. Chikiamco warned that pre-
venting utilities from recovering these costs could lead to underinvestment in the power sector. This means power companies may reduce spending on substations, distribution lines, transformers and other infrastructure if they are unable to recover enough of their operating and capital costs. Lower investment could, in turn, affect the reliability and quality of electricity services. “Not all system losses are within the control of the power company. Thefts and illegal connections are not within the total control of the power company,” the FEF chief added. Chikiamco also questioned the fiscal sustainability of the tax relief measures proposed by Marcos. The President urged Congress to pass measures that would raise See “FEF,” A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 61.7130 n JAPAN 0.3770 n UK 82.0783 n HK 7.8700 n CHINA 9.1257 n SINGAPORE 47.8173 n AUSTRALIA 43.1374 n EU 70.2047 n KOREA 0.0421 n SAUDI ARABIA 16.4402 Source: BSP (July 28, 2026)