Notes

Why must Filipinos suffer under the yoke of the highest electricity rates in the world? The short answer is greed, and behind that avarice is a system in which public service has been sacrificed on the altar of private profit.
Today, 12 years after the Electric Power Industry Reform Act or Epira was passed, it is clear that our dalliance with privatization has failed -- and failed miserably.
The mistaken premise behind Epira was that free market competition would flourish in the power industry and give consumers not only a choice of service providers but also the advantage of lower electricity rates.
This has been a cruel joke. The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is still the only power distributor that matters, holding 5.3 million consumers hostage to ever-rising electricity bills. The so-called competition among power generators has not resulted in lower power costs, either, and today, the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) is merely a pretense that offers the comforting illusion that competition exists.
Worse, the law is being used to justify onerous conditions that fair-minded people would instinctively resist. Why, for instance, is Meralco allowed to charge its customers for "system losses" that represent stolen electricity? Did Meralco's customers steal the power? No, they did not. Did they use it? No. Were they, in fact, responsible for the system losses? Again, the answer is no -- Meralco itself was to blame for its inability to stop system losses. Yet every month, we are billed for its incompetence.
When Meralco says it is willing to stagger its rate hikes out of concern for the consumer, it is merely sugar-coating a bitter pill that we will still be forced to swallow.