Consumers urged to turn off lights to protest power rate hike

MANILA, Philippines – All disgruntled consumers must turn off their lights for 30 minutes on Friday, December 13, to protest the Manila Electric Company’s (Meralco) P4.15 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) rate increase, a youth group said Wednesday.

“We call on every individual and community to turn off the lights on December 13, Friday, between 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. to oppose the impending P4.15/kWh power rate hike that will be implemented in a staggered basis starting this December,” Kabataan Partylist said in its online petition.

Kabataan Partylist Representative Terry Ridon said the “lights off protest” was a way for Meralco’s 4.7 million consumers to “vent their rage against the exorbitant increase.”

“Imagine 4 million households going dark in protest all at the same time. It may be a daunting feat, but no one should underestimate the growing anger of consumers against this new power rate hike,” he said.

Ridon said splitting the rate increase in tranches did nothing to ease the burden of the consumers.

Other groups protesting the increase said the Department of Energy and power producers should have anticipated and set-up an alternative plan, knowing that the Malampaya natural gas plant will be on a month-long maintenance shutdown.

Meralco said the generation charge increase was a result of power plants reverting to liquid fuel and the purchase of additional energy from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the absence of the Malampaya plant.

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