On Tuesday (March 9), the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) asked the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to allow it to “reduce” and spread over several months the whopping P1.83 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) hike in this month’s generation charge.

This is clearly a case of an insulting attempt at pa-pogi. Meralco wants to make it appear that consumers should have utang na loob for the firm’s voluntary offer to mitigate the impact of a drastic rate hike when in reality, the rate increase is unreasonable and Meralco has billions of unpaid debts to its close to 5 million customers.

Lower rate hike

In its petition, Meralco said that instead of a one-time hike of P1.8298 per kWh in generation charge for March, the ERC approve a rate hike of just P1.3852. The remaining balance of 44.46 centavos shall be collected from April to September to ease the impact of the increase on its customers.

Under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001, distribution utilities like Meralco can implement automatic generation rate adjustment. This means that they can automatically pass on to consumers increases in the cost of power generation.

Overcharging probe

Meralco’s move comes amid an ongoing probe on fresh allegations that the power firm overcharged its customers. In a December 2009 report, but released to the public only last month by the ERC, the Commission on Audit (COA) accused Meralco of overcharging its customers by as much as P7.29 billion.

According to the COA report, Meralco illegally passed on to consumers operating expenses such as P2.36 billion worth of employees’ pensions and benefits. Consumers were also made to shoulder the costs of property and equipment that COA said are questionable including the construction of a P526.2-million creek and a P156-million parking lot.

The ERC is expected to conduct public hearings this month to determine if the power firm needs to refund or implement a rate reduction to offset its over collections. Or it can also uphold Meralco’s claim of innocence.

Propensity for abuse

But this is not the first time that Meralco has been accused of overcharging. In 2003,  the Supreme Court (SC) affirmed COA’s findings that Meralco illegally collected P30.2 billion from its customers from 1994 to 2002. COA discovered that Meralco included income taxes in its RORB (return on rate base) calculations resulting in bloated electricity bills for consumers. Until today, the power distributor has yet to fully comply with the refund order of the SC.

Far from the image of a considerate and responsible company it desperately hopes to portray, Meralco has shown its unmistakable propensity for abuse. Its pattern of overcollections in the past couple of years clearly attests to this. Aside from the P30.2 billion, Meralco was also ordered by the ERC to return P2.88 billion in meter deposits as well as P3.92 billion in over-recovery of currency adjustments.

Upholding public interest

The power distributor could not claim that its generation charge is simply a pass on cost. Remember that Meralco sources its electricity from its own independent power producers (IPPs) and sister firms. Even in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), which Meralco is citing for the sudden and drastic hike in this month’s generation charges, Meralco’s sister companies and IPPs allow Meralco to account for as much as 40 percent of generated capacity.

Thus, consumers have nothing to thank Meralco for. We do not owe Meralco a single centavo, and it is Meralco that still has to return billions of pesos it illegally collected from us.

In light of the latest COA report accusing Meralco of again overcharging the consumers, the ERC should disallow any petition for a rate hike by the power distributor. Allowing it to jack up its rates would mean continuing injustice to consumers.

An immediate rate reduction is also justifiable considering that the latest COA report questioned the cost assumptions that the ERC used in approving Meralco’s huge 41-centavo hike in its distribution rates last year, which  allowed Meralco to post a 114 percent increase in its 2009 profits.