Customers first

Consumers first before bottom line.

A number of big businesses have made this their company statement ever since the quarantine started as their way of showing they care for their loyal customers, many of whom are now either jobless, have suffered from pay cuts, have closed down their businesses, or are barely surviving.

In the case of Manila Electric Co., it has assured its more than six million customers that it will not disconnect electricity services until Sept. 30 this year even if they have unpaid bills. Before, these customers were given one week after due date to settle their bills before the power utility starts disconnecting.

During a hearing of the House committee on energy last July 2, Meralco president Ray Espinosa announced that the suspension of disconnection notices has been extended to end-September. He said that service disconnection is farthest from their operational plans now and is not even being discussed, so as not to contribute to their customers’ worries during this pandemic.

The deadline was previously scheduled on Aug. 31, 2020.

Meralco has also allowed its customers to pay at least three months worth of unpaid bills in installments of up to six months at zero interest.

This, of course, will hurt Meralco financially since it has not received a similar installment option from its power suppliers. According to Meralco officials, the company has been paying power generators in full starting May to help the suppliers who, in turn, have to meet their own obligations.

These measures which Meralco have adopted respond more than adequately to House energy committee chair Rep. Lord Allan Velasco’s call for the power distributor to provide solutions for billing and service problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the congressional hearing, Meralco also emphasized that attending to customer concerns remains their top priority.

According to Meralco first vice president Victor Genuino, the company is now focused on handling customer concerns and questions one-by-one, which may prove to be quite challenging considering the sheer volume of Meralco customers, but nevertheless a necessity at this time.

Meralco also said that actual meter readings of customers affected by the previous enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has been completed so that customers will only have to pay for what they consumed.

The ECQ prevented Meralco from conducting actual meter reading operations for two months, triggering estimated billings, which were eventually discontinued to avoid further customer confusion.

Meter reading costs not incurred during the ECQ/MECQ period for 11.5 million customers’ bills amounting to P60 million will be refunded to customers beginning July 15.

Many of the legislators pointed out that the billing issues caused by estimated billings were not solely restricted to Meralco’s franchise area.

In fact, Energy Regulatory Commission chair Agnes Devanadera revealed that the agency received customer reports covering 61 other distribution utilities and electric cooperatives all over the country regarding the same issue.

During the session, consumer group Laban Konsyumer Inc. (LKI), via president Vic Dimagiba, also criticized the ambiguity of the ERC advisory on estimated bills.

He said DUs and ECs nationwide were left to implement their own estimation “without solid and granular directions” from the regulator, adding that had there been more clarity in the guidelines and advisories of the ERC, the confusion and stress brought about by the estimated bills would have been avoided.

Giving back

Another company that has shown in so many ways that it cares, not only for its customers and employees, but for the country and the economy as well is business conglomerate San Miguel Corp.

In his post on social media, SMC president Ramon S. Ang said they are determined to do their part to help the economy, the country and the people during the crisis, and the best way to do this is to continue and not scale back on investments in infrastructure and capacity expansion while providing support for the poor and other key sectors such as agriculture and health.

From saving lives and livelihoods by providing as much as P3.09 billion in terms of ECQ compensation for their employees and third-party providers, P511 million and P500 million for food and medical donations, respectively, P100 million for its Project Ugnayan, P97.1 million in terms of alcohol donations, P30.7 million in free toll fees, P6.2 million in free fuel for the government’s Libreng Sakay program and P7 million for quarantine facilities, to paying as much as P8.77 billion in advance taxes, and concession and contractual payments in order to boost government’s funds for COVID-19 response, SMC said its work begins to build back better by focusing on infrastructure (Skyway Stage 3, MRT-7, Alabang South Skyway Extension, SLEX TR 4, Skyway Stage 4, and TPLEX), agriculture (setting up Kadiwa stores for fruits and vegetable farmers at Petron stations, purchasing 5,000 liters of carabao’s milk for donation, among others) and health (building a laboratory to test its 70,000 employees and extended workforce, and donating RT-PCR machines, high-flow machines, and testing booths and PCR test kits).

SMC’s Better World EDSA COVID-19 testing lab can process 4,000 tests a day, expandable to 12,000, using PCR and high-throughput RNA machines.

Last Wednesday, RSA announced that they have completed all 89.21 kilometers of TPLEX with the opening of the final section, which is the Rosario exit. The construction of the final 11 km from Pozorrubio in Pangasinan to Rosario started in April 2018.

According to DPWH Secretary Mark Villar, there is now a proposal to extend TPLEX by an additional 59 km up to San Juan in La Union which will cost around P23.9 billion. The project involves a four-lane toll road which will start from the Rosario exit and ends in San Juan.

Indeed, together, we can continue making this a better world despite this pandemic.

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