Friday, May 16, 2008 Kampi congressmen to sue Meralco
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives said the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) should start paying its consumers refunds if it does not want to end up losing a multibillion-peso class suit for overcharging.
“If Meralco does not want to refund the overcharges voluntarily, we will file a class suit against them,” said Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi) president and Camarines Sur Representative Luis Villafuerte.
Villafuerte said the refund must include the systems loss charges wherein consumers are charged nearly half a billion pesos a year for electricity which Meralco itself uses.
“Would you return to the people the electricity your had used?” he asked, stressing that Meralco has already earned too much from the people’s toil.
Systems loss is that portion of electricity which is pilfered or is lost during transmission. Meralco's 9.5 percent systems loss has been partly blamed for high electricity rates.
Meralco has said a pass-on rate of P5.7 per kilowatt-hour, the power firm’s consumption is worth P427.5 million yearly.
The Lopezes, Villafuerte said, should also explain reports that it is giving huge discounts to Meralco’s sister companies which includes ABS-CBN and Bayantel.
On Wednesday, Villafuerte revealed in privilege speech that the Lopez-owned First Gas, a power generating company, overcharged Meralco for two-and-half years after its start-up in 2000 with billings for "ghost" deliveries of P12.99 billion a year.
The cost of the "ghost" deliveries under Meralco’s power purchase agreement was passed on to consumers.
Villafuerte said the overcharges started in June 2000 and lasted up to December 2002 when Meralco paid for power averaging 1,000 megawatts when the generating plant Sta. Rita had a capacity of only 300 megawatts.
Meanwhile, Meralco and the state-run National Power Corporation (Napocor) branded the ads that came out in major dailies as “misleading” and “pure lies”.
In separate statements, Meralco and Napocor claimed the allegations in the ads are meant to create confusion among the reading public.
Meralco vice president for corporate communication Elpi Cuna Jr. disputed an ad that was published in the major dailies entitled “ANO ANG TOTOO, ang Meralco ad o ang kanilang website?” that it is obviously tried to confuse readers by comparing data from different periods.
He said the ad deliberately tried to mix up the figures, which are otherwise clearly and accurately identified by Meralco in their own advertisement and website.
“We come up with these ads and postings in our website to adhere to the principle of transparency. I guess it is those groups who hide behind the identity of some unknown labor associations that are not being transparent and have shady agenda,” he added.
For its part, Napocor asserted that these ads are really meant to misinform the general reading public.
Napocor spokesman Dennis Gana said the reading public should question as to how these ads are being paid for.
“These ads insult the intelligence of the reading public. We at Napocor believe that the reading public are more discriminate and of course intelligent in their choice as to whether or not to believe these ads. I think they see these ads for what they are really worth -- pure black propaganda which are meant to misinform them of the real issues at hand,” Gana said. (WV/MSN/Sunnex)
