Shakira, the phenomenally successful performing artist from Colombia, and of Lebanese decent, says it best: “Hips don’t lie”. Some of my colleagues on the other hand, who are practitioners of the dismal science, might say: “data is data is data.” Either way, sometimes you just gotta step back and look at the numbers. Or you may want to first sit back and watch Shakira perform with rap artist Wycleff Jean in this clip 
If you are like me, you may have a general perception that NPC tariff levels are lower than the price of power in the spot market. But here’s the data: 
And the pictures:
The WESM prices, for the first two years of operations, have averaged about 12% less than the NPC rates.
Here is a look at the total effective selling rate of NPC in the three grids:
This was also a little surprising to me. I’ve been expecting the prices to converge, but I thought it would take a couple more years that the Visayas and Mindanao prices would come up to the Luzon price. That’s not what’s been happening recently.