An unfair situation!

Of late, I have been seeing public apologies printed in the local dailies. Men, who supposedly violated the law against theft of electricity, are the purported authors of these publications. They apparently stole electric power thru the implement of their illegal connections. I remember a lively discussion, decades ago, of the case of People vs. Carlos that dwelt on the then novel issue of how could one steal electric current when it was something that was difficult to appropriate.

 Well, this article is not about the legal aspect of this kind of theft. That is reserved to the earnest pursuits of students of law. Apropos to the off tangent nature of this column, I am angling at an entirely different viewpoint.

 First, I noticed the studious care with which these publications were written. They were crafted in such a way that the criminal act of theft was not a given. Upon a brief reading of the text, the first time I came upon one such public apology, some time ago, I did not understand right away what the “apologist” wanted to ask forgiveness for. I had to read it again and paused before I actually discerned what it was all about. To me, the message was hidden behind a heavy bevy of gobbledygook.

 Second, it must have been the copywriters of the power company who composed the “apology”. This could be deduced from the fact that there was only one text of the apology even if there, apparently, were different persons. It was impossible for various personalities from diverse fields of endeavors like architects and high-powered businessmen to compose exactly the same publication. Indeed, there could only be one writer or group of writers. Surely, it was not the thief (Carlos in the old criminal law case), correction, they were not the thieves, Carloses, who wrote the apology.

 Third. Having said my second observation above, I have to congratulate the power company for asking its people to crack their brains to come up with a splendid Christian job. To protect the name and reputation of the thief, they wrote an apology that did not look like one except that it was couched as such. I am sure that it was first shown to the “apologists” before it was sent to the newspaper for publication and the supposed criminal offenders were happy to accept the way apology was structured.

 Fourth. The appreciable intention of the power company was not to humiliate the thieves. Those publications were written not as punishments for the theft of electric current but as an acceptable compromise to restrain the Carloses from committing the same criminal act again. Of course, the apology was designed also as a fair warning against those similarly minded.

 Really, was the written apology enough? There were no indications that aside from asking forgiveness, the pilferers of electric power were meted any other penalty. I believe though that they were made to pay an equivalent cash for the estimated value of the stolen power consumption plus, plus. How much those Carloses coughed up for the power company to desist from prosecuting them before our courts of law would, I suppose, remain a confidential matter.

 This is where my beef lies. In our ever-spiraling monthly electricity billing statement where the charges are unbundled, there is a curious item. It is an amount that is to pay for the consumptions of those who are tapping into the power lines illegally. In other words, all innocent users of power shoulder the cost of the stolen current. Those of us who religiously pay our electric consumption are the ones paying for the illegal power connections of pilferers! That is NOT FAIR.

 In all other businesses, the owners absorb their losses. They do not charge against their customers the losses incurred from say, their absconding employees. I have yet to encounter a businessman, who, in the course of our deals, asks me to pay for the value of goods stolen by other persons. That is preposterous.

That is why power companies are not interested to catch pilferers. They do not care because whatever losses are occasioned by illegal users are paid by the innocent ones. And it looks to me that the written apologies of our present Carloses are the consuelo de bobo to all of us. I wonder if there is anyone congressman out there who thinks of amending the EPIRA law to remedy this anomalous situation. End.