A boy in Tondo, Manila, helps his family gather water (File photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ)
MANILA, Philippines – Party-list group Bayan Muna on Thursday urged the Supreme Court (SC) to order Maynilad and Manila Water to refund their consumers.
This was because the water concessionaires had supposedly illegally passed on to the customers the responsibility of paying corporate income taxes.
In a motion for partial reconsideration, Bayan Muna asked SC to direct the two companies to “account all corporate income taxes of Maynilad and Manila Water that it allowed to be included in fixing applicable water rates from years 2002 up to 2012.”
The petitioners were led by Bayan Muna chairperson Neri Colmenares and Bayan Muna executive vice president Carlos Isagani Zarate,
Their motion stated, “it is respectfully prayed of this Honorable Court that Maynilad and Manila Water be (also) directed to refund these illegally passed-on corporate income taxes to their respective water consumers.”
A December 2021 SC ruling had declared that the two firms are public utilities.
Because of this, they are barred from passing on their corporate income taxes to clients.
These taxes were supposedly labeled as operating expenses, the petitioners said.
SC had described the practice of the concessionaires as “unjustified and inequitable.”
Colmenares and Zarate believed if the plea would be granted, consumers would be able to get back billions of pesos that were forcibly taken from them in the form of charges in their bills.
“We just hope that it completes the relief asked by consumers and grant us the right to demand a refund and take back the billions we paid for the corporate income tax of the Maynilad and Manila Water arbitrarily imposed on us despite our opposition,” Bayan Muna told the justices in the petition.
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