Meralco warns of rotational blackouts

AFP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the petitions seeking to declare as illegal the P4.15 power rate increase and lift the 60-day restraining order it issued last month.

In its 139-page comment submitted to the high court, a copy of which was provided to the media Thursday, Meralco said since the restraining order was issued last month, it has been shouldering the generation, transmission and other pass-through charges.

“The transmission company may stop transmitting if Meralco was unable to pay for the transmission charges. The entire power industry may come to screeching halt. One can readily imagine the dire consequences to the economy and security of the country should this happen, as there will surely be rotating blackouts through Meralco’s franchise area,” it added.

“In fact, Meralco has already received demand letters from transmission and generation companies for the full payment of their November 2013 power bills. This means that the grim scenario described earlier is not at all far-fetched and may be imminent,” it added.

Meralco pointed out that petitioners failed to substantiate allegations of collusion between them, other power generating companies and government agencies.

“Bayan Muna et.al failed to provide any proof, as there is none, showing that Meralco colluded with the GenCos (power generating companies), on the contrary, Meralco took steps to mitigate the consequences of the maintenance shutdown of various power plants, thereafter, even if Meralco could have fully charged the increase in generation costs in its December 2013 billing to its customers as provided by law, Meralco, in good faith, sought guidance from the ERC to implement a staggered collection of the generation rate increase in order to cushion the burden of the increase on the consuming public,” Meralco told the high court.

The power firm noted that its distribution charges did not actually increase in the bill month of December 2013 as the increase in electricity charge for the same period was accounted for by increases in certain “pass-through” charges such as generation charge, transmission charge, system loss and taxes.

“Meralco did not and does not derive a single centavo of profit from any of these charges. Accordingly, it can be made to finance or’ advance the payment of these “pass-through” charges unless it can recover these charges with certainty from its customers,” it added.

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