Members of the Power for People Coalition (P4P Coalition) and Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) organized a demonstration at the main office of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) in Pasig City on Tuesday to protest against the high electricity rates imposed by the company on its customers.
Meralco stands as the largest privately owned electric distribution utility in the Philippines, serving 8 million customers throughout Manila and its surrounding provinces, and plays a significant role in power generation via its subsidiary, Meralco PowerGen (MGen).
“In the last three years, Meralco’s residential rates have risen by over P3.34 per kWh. That’s an additional P26 million that Meralco consumers are pouring into its coffers every single month today. While Filipinos drown in rising costs of living, Meralco swims in billions in profits each year,” said Gerry Arances, convenor of the Power for People Coalition.
The energy and consumer rights advocate said Meralco and energy authorities need to be subjected to stringent public scrutiny over rising rates, which are a result of anti-consumer behavior emboldened by enabling regulatory or policy actions from energy authorities.
Malpractices highlighted by the protesters included Meralco’s overcharging of consumers an estimated P115 billion between 2012 and 2022, which they claimed was the result of the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) neglect in conducting a regulatory rate reset for Meralco for years.
“This is robbery in broad daylight. They overcharge electricity consumers by hundreds of billions of pesos. Yet when Meralco is obligated to refund these unjustly charged costs, they are only required to return a mere fraction of it at a convenient pace of several years,” Arances said.
The group stressed that the firm’s multi-faceted insistence on fossil fuels exacerbates high costs of electricity.
It stated that last year, Meralco acquired a 40.2% stake in San Miguel Corporation’s liquefied natural gas-powered Excellent Energy Resources Inc. (EERI) and South Premiere Power Corp., which charged over P8/kWh for generation in September—rates that are among the highest among facilities contracted by Meralco.
Such generation costs are then passed down to consumers due to the contracts featuring a two-part tariff structure.
“High costs in generating power from gas and coal are passed down for consumers to shoulder, as if it was the consumers’ choice that Meralco uses fossil fuels to begin with,” Arances said.
With the acquisition, over 50% of the capacity contracted by Meralco’s distribution arm is now owned by its generation business—a breach of limits allowed by law to mitigate anti-consumer practices and price plays enabled by cross-ownership.
PLM President Leody de Guzman said corruption and abuse do not only occur in flood control.
“In the matter of electricity, it is clear that Meralco benefits from every collusion of the ERC, Department of Energy (DOE), and the entire administration in their duty to protect the welfare of the consumer,” he said.
“Ordinary consumers and workers, sometimes they won’t eat, they won’t buy medicine just to pay for electricity. Every time Meralco imposes a charge on us, it strips away the pretense that it treats electricity as a service, and turns it into just a business,” De Guzman said.
“With every neglect of the government in the electricity sector, it allows the people to be robbed of the money they work so hard to earn,” he added.
Meralco has to issue an official comment regarding the protesters’ complaints.
