Thursday, August 14, 2008 Covington: The electric bill cometh By Gary Covington Looking In
THE streetlights have come on. It's two-thirty in the afternoon, Sunday. The sky is black as a boot, threatening to rain, and I've just received my Davao Light bill.
Have you ever looked at a light bill in detail? The left side is reasonable -- meter number, period covered, units used -- kilowatt hours -- and in any other country less enamored with paperwork that would be about it. A total to pay. Finish.
But this is here and a simple bill is too, well, simple. Like those massive name boards folks display on the front of their desks. A straightforward Juan dela Cruz Esq. looks so insignificant, so ordinary -- let's trick it out with some gilt curlicues, a scroll or two, a bit of inlay and of course it has to be BIG. Like my oversized electric bill, an A4 sized sheet of paper covered with small print. A mass of information. Davao Light telling me quite unnecessarily -- I still have to pay the bill, don't I? -- what, down to the last mini-amp, I am paying for.
There's a generation charge, a transmission charge and -- oh ho -- a system loss charge. System loss? What exactly is a system loss? Am I paying for all the juice crocodile-clipped from "uninsulated" lines by ne'er do wells? Or does an electric grid -- like DCWD's water pipes' leak -- I don't know. I'm asking.
Next is a distribution charge, a supply charge and a metering charge. No mysteries there but what do I care that my supply charge is 0.1716 centavos per kilowatt-hour? I'm not likely to storm down to Davao Light complaining that the rate's a bit stiff. 0.1716 per Kwh? Daylight robbery.
That's Davao Light's share of the bill. Now comes what is politely termed Government Revenue. Tax. Value Added Tax first and VAT takes no prisoners -- generation, transmission, distribution -- all the previous classifications are there including -- can you believe it -- good old systems loss. You and I pay VAT on a charge which Davao Light slips in to pay for the juice THEY lose. Not me. I don't lose electricity. There's no bucket sitting under leaky sockets in my house so why do I pay VAT?
It gets better. You and I are paying the government for something called Missionary Electrification. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I hope not.
Lastly but not the least, via Davao Light's bill, you and I pay an Environmental Charge -- 0. 00025 centavos per kilowatt-hour. A tiny, tiny amount but multiply it by all of Davao Light's customers and then multiply again by the nation's power consumers. A fabulous figure I'd think. And where does it go? Has anyone noticed Malacanang doing anything environmental lately (And I don't count flower tubs at the palace doors)? Or is it another of these sly, obscure taxes the government slips in everywhere -- taxes which are collected and then sink unnoticed into the vast soak away of government spending?
The streetlight has turned itself off. The afternoon is brightening up, the black clouds moving away to rain on someone else. A motorcycle-mounted courier boy has just clanged my letterbox lid. It's the water bill.
