The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has assured the Department of Energy (DOE) that it would soon finish the delivery of “personalized” letters to over 4 million of its customers to explain their May bills.
The electric meters of the customers were read in May, but their bills contained a reading that was based on estimated consumption in March or April.
In a letter to Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi, Meralco President and CEO Ray C. Espinosa said the company is “on target to deliver the 4.1 million personalized letters to customers explaining their May 2020 bills made even more laymanized than what we issued for the June bills.”
The delivery of said letters commenced last July 10 and will be completed by Thursday.
Earlier this week, Cusi followed up on actions taken by Meralco to resolve consumer complaints previously discussed with the company’s executives.
“When I met with Meralco last May, I advised them to reissue electricity bills based on actual meter readings and disregard previous bills that were made on estimated consumption,” he said.
“We met again in June to discuss their implementation plan, and at that time, I underscored the importance of properly and clearly communicating with their consumers. Meralco informed us then that they will be issuing advisories explaining the May and June billings through letters, social-media posts, and print media notices.”
Meralco provided the DOE a compliance status report on commitments made to the agency, Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Joint Congressional Energy Commission; Senate and House Committees on Energy, and the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability.
Espinosa also said “virtual agents” in select Bayad Center outlets within its franchise area were deployed so that the affected customers can talk to a Meralco employee via computer set up with regards to their billing concerns. Additional manpower was also deployed to handle complaints in various digital channels such as emails, Facebook and Twitter.
Meralco also shouldered the P47 convenience fee charged by the payment gateway provider for payments made through the Meralco online app or website for payment transactions between March 15 to May 16, amounting to P12.6 million for approximately 268,000 transactions.
Espinosa said no convenience fees will be charged for Meralco online payments until the end of the general community quarantine.
According to Cusi, the DOE continues to receive a high volume of consumer complaints regarding their May and June Meralco bills.
“We welcome Meralco’s assurance that they have been acting upon the various issues being raised by consumers. In this time of pandemic, our people are plagued with concerns about their health and safety, as well as their job and financial security. The government and private sector should work hand-in-hand to alleviate, and not add to their burdens,” he said.
The ERC said it would tap the Commission on Audit (COA) to verify whether the refunds to Meralco customers have been given or credited to their accounts.
“The ERC is short of auditors so we are mulling over to seek the assistance of the COA to find out if the refunds that Meralco is supposed to have undertaken have already been completed or not,” ERC Chairman and CEO Agnes VST Devanadera.
“We believe that there must be proper auditing by an independent party, and we are confident that the COA is the best entity that could render their evaluation on Meralco’s refund as they are reliable and unbiased.”
The ERC had ordered Meralco to refund the Bill Deposit, Meter Deposit, and Income Tax that it collected from its customers.
The agency also ordered the refund of the Feed-In Tariff Allowance (FIT-All) and Universal Charge-Environmental Charge (UC-EC) that were collected from their consumers during the quarantine period.
It can be recalled that the ERC had previously sought the assistance of the COA to establish whether the implementation of the approved unbundled distribution rates resulted in a fair return and the recovery of generation costs were indeed revenue-neutral to Meralco. The COA then conducted a complete audit of the books, records, and accounts of Meralco.
“We are preparing to discuss our upcoming engagement with the COA as soon as practicable. We will rely on COA’s expertise to verify and ensure that what were supposed to have been refunded or credited to the consumers’ electricity accounts have been duly returned to them,” Devanadera added.
Policy review
House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano has directed the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to review its policies to ensure that they are still “pro public and government.”
Cayetano issued the statement after the ERC admitted that it received several consumer complaints over the electric bill shocks during the community quarantine period.
During his manifestation at the Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability’s hearing on high electricity rates, Cayetano also told ERC to be “more progressive” and interpret the law in favor of the public when it comes to dealing with certain companies.
“Follow the example of our President, our Commander-in-chief, our Chief Executive. Be more progressive in interpreting the law. We have to interpret this in favor of the public,” Cayetano said.
“I’ve been watching you even in our other hearings…Please review your current stance.”
According to Cayetano, there are a lot of companies that have liabilities to the government and “yet the ERC chooses to side with the power producers or the owner of the company.”
“I’m not saying you’re not doing your job. Let me make this clear, this is no different from ABS-CBN. Just because what you’re doing is legal, that doesn’t mean you’re not abusing the system.”
Last week, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises denied the application of ABS-CBN Corp. due to “several violations.”
“I would like to advise all our government agencies, even the BIR [Bureau of Internal Revenue], not to say that it’s right just because it’s legal. Study it carefully then tell us if there’s a violation,” he added.
ERC Executive Director Floresinda Baldo-Digal told lawmakers that the agency has already received 50,000 consumer complaints against Meralco following the lockdown period.
Baldo-Digal also said the ERC is committed to address all the complaints as they now have 70 people working on it.
Image Credits: Nana Buxani/Bloomberg News
