A LAPU-LAPU City official continues to seek the reduction of the Mactan Electric Company’s (Meco) electricity rates.
After withdrawing on Wednesday, September 28, 2022, his earlier resolution that appealed to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to resolve Meco’s application for a provisional authority to draw power supply from the SMC Consolidated Power Corporation (SCPC), Councilor Marciano Alforque Jr. told SunStar Cebu he will file another resolution asking Mayor Junard Chan to make a similar appeal to the ERC.
Meco senior vice president and general manager Gilbert Pagobo earlier said the total rate would drop to P8.60 per kilowatt hour if the ERC approved its contract with the SMC SCPC.
Alforque said his new resolution is expected to be tackled this week, adding that he will ask the council secretariat to furnish a copy to the Department of Energy, as well as to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte.
Meco was invited to appear before the council’s committee on energy to shed light on numerous complaints regarding the firm’s electric bills in Lapu-Lapu City.
During the hearing last September 1, Pagobo denied that Meco overcharged its consumers.
While he admitted that electric bills had gone up, he attributed this to transmission and generation rates increasing from time to time.
He said Meco has not raised the distribution charge of P1.4408 per kilowatt hour for 12 years.