Confusing times

The Department of Energy (DOE) has recently required the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to respond to reported complaints from its customers of alleged overcharged billing. While the entire Luzon have been on lockdown due to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, certain household consumers complained to the DOE about their being supposedly overcharged in their monthly electric bills for the past three months.

The complaints were largely due to the fact that Meralco suspended meter-reading services in compliance with the government’s quarantine measures. Based from our billing notice, Meralco conducts meter reading every 20th of the month. However, the meter-reading services of Meralco are among the non-essential activities that were covered by the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) declared over the entire Meralco-serviced areas in Luzon, including the national capital region (NCR) since March 15. 

Thus, the complaining Meralco customers questioned the basis by which their electricity bills had been computed that purportedly become unreasonably too high compared to their previous months’ consumption. Are the Meralco billing merely based on guesswork when nobody even bothered to read their electric meters at home? 

Joe Zaldarriaga, the official spokesperson of Meralco, clarified the electricity consumption of their customers for the past three months was based on average consumption following the Distribution Services and Open Access Rules issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).  Zaldarriaga issued this public clarification in an official statement released to media last week.

At any rate, this clarification will be presented to the Joint Congressional Energy Commission (JCEC) – the country’s primary watchdog in the power sector – on May 21 to align interpretations of DOE and ERC advisories. Several weeks after the first month-long lockdown, the ERC and DOE directed all distribution utilities and retail electricity suppliers to defer customer electricity bills falling due within the ECQ “without interest, penalties, fees and other charges.” Likewise, the ERC ordered them to stagger the payment of electricity bills for up to four months.

As explained in detail by Zaldarriaga, the past three months – December 2019, January 2020 and February 2020 – that were used as basis for the March and April bills – were considered “low consumption” months. These are the months when we usually have cooler temperature in our country. Compared to the hot and humid summer months here during March, April and May, naturally there is higher power consumption as Meralco consumers turn on more electric fans, air-conditioner, and other cooling appliances. 

And directly as a consequence of the strict “stay home” guidelines during the ECQ that was twice extended already for 15 days each, many of us were stuck inside our homes to avoid COVID-19 infection while at the same time beating the summer heat. Of course, as everybody stayed inside our houses, there is  more consumption of electricity in watching TV, playing computer games, cooking, doing “work-at-home,” etc. 

While others complained about “shock” bills they got from alleged overcharging by Meralco, I got a different shocker of my own Meralco bill. I got a “zero” Meralco billing for this month. Although the “current account amount” indicated “P 0.00” in my Meralco billing, it provided a detailed “breakdown of electricity charges.” After I added them up, it reached a total of P11,667.40 supposedly due for payment on May 29.

Since our monthly electric billing has been enrolled to my credit card automatic payment, I found out the same amount was already paid to Meralco. So it’s quite confusing which entity would I complain to now. 

Since May 4 though, Zaldarriaga announced, Meralco started redeploying meter readers to record again the actual consumption of all its customers. Noticeably, it was several days ahead before the second round of Luzon-wide lockdown lapsed last Friday, May 15. The Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging and Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) extended anew for another 15 days the lockdown. However, many of these provinces around the country, including Luzon have been downgraded from the stringent ECQ rules into new classifications that have more relaxed lockdown guidelines. 

A large part of the Luzon provinces deemed by the IATF as “low-risk” areas on potential resurgence of COVID-19 are now downgraded into modified general community quarantine (MGCQ). Originally, the IATF lifted the lockdowns in these provinces but officials from these local government units (LGUs) sought to continue the quarantine in their respective areas. 

Several other provinces deemed to be “moderate risk” areas are now placed under GCQ. The areas considered still as “high-risk” for COVID-19 cases included the NCR and six other provinces and one city. Still placed under stringent ECQ are the cities of Cebu and Mandaue where growing local transmissions of COVID-19 infection still persist.

Presumably, the unsaid rule yet is: should there be a sudden spike or resurgence of COVID-19 cases, the IATF will revert any area or areas under the new and more stringent lockdown guidelines.     

For now, these “modified” categories and guidelines will apply until the next review of the IATF before the end of this month subject to the approval of President Duterte. From the latest extension of our IATF-Rapid Pass for media workers indicating it would be “valid until 06/30,” it is quite safe to brace for another lockdown extension until end of June.

The 18th Congress – set to wind down on June 5 – is eyeing to also extend the validity of Republic Act (RA) 11469, otherwise called as the Bayanihan To Heal As One Act. It intends to allow the full distribution of the emergency cash assistance under its social amelioration program (SAP) for the poor and other vulnerable sectors reeling from the COVID-lockdown.

With quarantine guidelines modified every now and then, the IATF should come up first during these confusing times with more efficient distribution of SAP that many of the LGUs bungled up.