Meralco questioned over transaction fee

HIGH ELECTRICITY BILLS Many households in Metro Manila and other areas served by Meralco are shocked to see their power bills for May skyrocket even as they suffer the loss of their livelihoods because of the coronavirus pandemic. —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power retailer, was yet again asked to explain issues related to payment of bills, this time by the Department of Energy.

The energy department wants to know why customers pay a fee of P47 when paying their bills through Meralco Online, a platform accessible via a website or a mobile app.

The billing issues also have prompted the Senate to look into these matters following complaints from consumers about what they believe to be inordinately high charges, according to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian.

In the House of Representatives, the opposition Makabayan bloc is calling for an inquiry into the “sudden big spike” in power bills.

The Energy Regulatory Commission earlier asked the power distributor to explain the bills.

Meralco app

“It has come to our attention that Meralco has launched an app to handle monthly billing payments by your customers,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said in a letter on May 14 to Meralco president Ray Espinosa.

Cusi said his office had been receiving reports “that your system effectively obliges the paying customer to depart from existing payment arrangements, i.e. through banks, and now they have to go through your app for which they have to pay a fee of P47 per transaction.”

When sought for comment, Meralco senior vice president William Pamintuan explained that payment through Meralco Online was “purely voluntary on the part of the customer and is just one of the many available payment options.”

Aside from over-the-counter payments at Meralco business centers and various Bayad Centers, customers can pay their monthly bills online through the websites and mobile apps of various partner banks.

The apps or mobile wallets include coins.ph, GCash, Smart Money and PayMaya.

24/7 payment option

Pamintuan said Meralco Online was a payment option that was made available “to address customers’ clamor for 24/7 payment option.”

The lawyer added that the P47 fee did not go to Meralco’s coffers, since this was “charged by online payment services provider to those using their platform or system to transact online payments for their convenience.”

Cusi said Meralco should obtain authority from the government to roll out such an initiative.

“Apparently, your offices are justifying that you do not need to go through the government because this fee collection does not go to Meralco—that it goes to your app service provider,” Cusi said.

“ln this regard, we would like your company to explain to us immediately the rationale of your new payment scheme and confirm if the above information is correct and approved by management,” he said.

“Likewise, we would like to question your intentions on this and your decision to time the introduction of this new process during this pandemic.’’

But the service was launched as early as September 2018, although it was more recently promoted as “a digital omni-channel” to facilitate and service consumer transactions during enhanced community quarantine.

Paperless billing

As of March 31, Meralco Online had more than 719,000 active accounts.

Among these users, about 26,000 have opted for paperless billing subscriptions — they can receive their monthly bills by email.

Responding in February to a user’s criticism of the P47 fee on Twitter, Meralco said the amount was set by its “card networks (e.g. Visa, Mastercard, etc.) and it’s payment partner PayMaya, to follow online payment Asia-Pacific standards.”

PayMaya, like Meralco, is part of the MVP (Manuel V. Pangilinan) group of companies.

Joint commission hearing

Consumer concerns over their Meralco bills are among those to be tackled on Friday at the Joint Congressional Energy Commission hearing on the effects of the new coronavirus health crisis on the power sector, according to Gatchalian.

Gatchalian, chair of the Senate energy committee, said his office had started looking into whether Meralco had taken advantage of the pandemic to the detriment of its consumers.

He found Meralco’s bill confusing.

Meralco earlier said it had billed customers based on average consumption from December to February because meter readings could not be done in March and April due to the quarantine.

December, January and February are usually low consumption months because of cooler weather.

People used appliances more during the quarantine since they mostly stayed at home, according to Meralco.

In filing a resolution on Monday, the Makabayan bloc urged the energy committee to investigate, in aid of legislation, the increase in power rates that had caused bills to double, triple, or even quadruple in some cases this month, while most of the country remained on quarantine.

Overcapacity

The surge in power rates occurred despite “overcapacity of the electricity supply,” said the bloc.

The group said Meralco implemented an increase of P0.1050 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), from P8.8901 per kWh to P8.9951 per kWh in April, equivalent to a P21 upward movement in the total bill of residential customers consuming an average of 200 kWh, Makabayan said.

As for the March-April period when most of Luzon went on a mandatory lockdown, Meralco invoked the “force majeure” provision in its power supply agreements due to the significant reduction in power demand in its service area.

“As a result, Meralco said it would reduce the fixed charges that would have been charged to the consumers,” the group said.

In May, however, many consumers were shocked to find that their bills had skyrocketed.