Who is really running our country’s electricity regulatory system: the government or Meralco? Are our laws crafted to make consumers suffer?
These are two burning questions Filipinos already enduring searing heat and the aftereffects of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East must have in mind right now.
As the Philippines enter the dry season and the ordinary worker continues to suffer from the impact of high prices of petroleum prices, the recent “bill shock” experienced by consumers of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has sent netizens reeling with anger.
Their question to government agencies, particularly the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC): why is Meralco allowed to get away with shifting the burden of “pass-through charges,” particularly the lifeline subsidies meant to shoulder the costs of providing electricity to indigent sectors, to their consumers?
And the ERC’s response (or, we should say, non-response) to this burning question: these pass-through charges “are imposed in accordance with existing laws and policies” and that they have little choice but to follow the law.
It was, in effect, a plagiarized version of Meralco’s defense for collecting these additional charges: that these are “mandated by law.”
Which brings us to another question consumer groups have been asking for years: what the heck does the Energy Regulatory Commission really “regulate,” anyway?
Critics have charged that all the ERC does is to “rubber-stamp” the dictates of the country’s energy producers and distributors – and, by the way, let us point out that in Meralco’s case, the lines between energy production and distribution have become increasingly blurred as Meralco has also entered the lucrative business of power generation.
In the particular case of the pass-through charges that some believe are being unjustly passed to the consumers, it’s clear that ERC has abdicated its primary mandate of protecting the consumers against abuses by big business.
Would it be safe to say that at this point, all the ERC “regulates” is how much money can the big oligarchs who control our energy sector can pocket at the expense of the ordinary Juan?
#WeTakeAStand #OpinYon #OpinYonNews #Editorial #ERC #Meralco