MANILA, Phiippines - Meralco has finally overstepped its greed. Because it keeps increasing its power rates, already the highest in Asia, Meralco is now under a four-pronged attack-from the President, from its partner, from businessmen-customers and from ordinary customers. President Macapagal-Arroyo is wondering why Meralco rates are very high and has urged businessmen to file a petition with the Energy Regulatory Commission to lower the rates. Its partner, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which owns 25 percent of Meralco and holds four seats in the 11-member board (Meralco has five seats while independent directors hold the remaining two), is also hopping mad.

Through its president and general manager, Winston Garcia, the GSIS wants Meralco to show its documents, including the contracts it entered into and how it bills its customers. But Meralco only showed him the door. So Garcia threatened to sue Meralco, "if only to shed light on and correct several questionable practices and deals by Meralco." Among these is the 58 centavos per kilowatt hour collected by Meralco from its customers as "systems loss charge" to cover claimed pilferage and heat losses.

"This systems loss charge is unfair to all Meralco customers as they are made to pay for electricity they did not use but stolen by other people, as well as electricity lost due to the incompetence and inefficiency of Meralco in distributing power," Garcia said.

The prevailing public perception is that Meralco is neither cracking down on pilferers nor plugging distribution leakages because it collects these losses from honest paying customers anyway.

"And with Meralco keeping even its investors in the dark, it may be getting away with not only charging customers for electricity they did not use, but also for electricity that had notbeen lost from pilferage or distribution inefficiency," the GSIS statement said.

"Who knows if some companies sharing an umbilical cord with Meralco may be using electricity which had been declared as 'lost' and for which Meralco customers are charged," the statement added.

If Meralco is not being believed, it is because it has already been twice reprimanded by the Supreme Court for overcharging its customers and ordered it to refund its customers, first in April 2003 to the tune of P28 billion, and again in 2006 for using deceit in passing new charges to its customers without publicizing it as required by law.

The high court found Meralco including income tax payments in its operating expenses, which were then used as basis for fixing power rates. The SC said that by widening the base for computing power rates, Meralco was able to exceed its allowable 12 percent profit margin by 8.15 percent.

Meralco also owes Napocor P27 billion. Instead of paying Napocor, it has asked the ERC to allow it to pass the debt on to its customers. If approved (and the ERC seems inclined to approve it, judging from the statements of its chief, former Rep. Rodolfo Albano, who is retiring in two months), Meralco will charge its customers an extra P.90 per kWh.

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As if Meralco and rising food prices were not enough, the oil companies doubled yesterday the weekly hikes on fuel prices from 50 centavos to P1. The excuse of course is the rising price of crude oil in the world market. We cannot deny that but the oil firms do not have to raise their prices right away. Can't they wait until the rice crisis has stabilized before stabbing us again with hefty increases in fuel prices? The oil firms are making billions in profits; they can afford to forgo a few million so as not to unduly burden the people.

But that may be wishful thinking. From now on, fuel prices will rise by one peso every week. There is only one thing the people can do to save on fuel costs: consume less fuel. Take public transportation, preferably the elevated rails. They are fast and relatively cheap.

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Remember the bankrupt company, Liberty Broadcast Network Inc. (LBNI), which was secretly allocated Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) frequencies by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC)? Records show that the man behind it is one Raymond Moreno.

LBNI has long ceased operations and has no more business from which it can pay its obligations. The LBNI building in Pasong Tamo Extension was foreclosed by the Development Bank of the Philippines. LBNI's tower sites were foreclosed by United Coconut Planters Bank. Moreno's real estate holdings have been attached by creditor banks and his house in Mckinley Road, Forbes Park, is mortgaged to Banco de Oro and was attached by Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.

But the point of this column is that the Ombudsman should conduct an investigation of the anomalous allocation by the NTC of BWA frequencies to bankrupt LBNI (which has no financial and technical capability to provide the service), without hearing and notice to affected parties, particularly to competing telcos who are fighting for the allocation of the limited BWA frequencies.