“Why did the ERC allow Meralco to increase its rates when it can’t even tell us the kind of alternative fuels that were used, its cost per unit and the quantity used during the two and a half week shutdown?”
Based on world market trends, fuel energy available to power producers now cost more than 50-percent lower. As such, the Malampaya shutdown “clearly should not result to additional costs, and thus, (there is) no basis for any power rate hike.”
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective There is something ominous when the president asks Congress for emergency powers on the week that the country is about to commemorate the infamy of the Marcos dictatorship. Nothing good has come out, for the Filipino people, of the granting of emergency powers to the president. The best example, of…
In this week’s hearing, Meralco is ostensibly just following rules, and WESM rules have inability to prevent manipulation while the regulator failed to ensure rules do not prejudice Meralco costumers.
Read also: Opposition to Meralco rate hike persists despite 13-cent slash in rates
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld In opposing the steep rise in electricity rates charged by Meralco and the generation companies (GenCos) starting December 2013, we need to dig deeper into the why’s and wherefore’s of high electricity rates. The Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 or EPIRA has been setting the neoliberal parameters…
“This is supposed to be a basic social service to the people. But the government failed to provide it to us. Now, it is the capitalists who are benefiting.”
The unprecedented hike was revealed as mostly due to Meralco’s contract with Thermo Mobile, which had bid 25 times higher than the usual rate, or the average recorded by WESM (P62 from P6 to 8 per kilowatt-hour). It was also disclosed that Meralco actually dictates and has full control over the pricing decisions of Thermo Mobile.
Meralco rate hike, bill deposit charge denounced as ‘acts of greed’ (Photos by Marya Salamat / Bulatlat.com)
By MARYA SALAMAT Bulatlat.com MANILA – This month, Filipino consumers are being asked yet again to cope with increased electricity rates, spurring protests and renewed calls to scrap the Electric Power Industry Reform Act or EPIRA. The law is being blamed for having allowed electricity rates to increase so much. The Manila Electric Company (Meralco),…
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“This is all artificial.” – Dr. Jean Lindo, Kalikasan Party, No to Coal-Davao
By MARYA SALAMAT
Small Filipino businessmen reportedly concede that it is not wage which is eating up a huge chunk of their profits, but energy costs.