Price hike abhorrent but due, but how about refunding bill deposits in full

Given the widely-abhorred Meralco power rate increase, I was expecting that my electricity bill for December (my billing cutoff is every 10th of the month) would be at least 50 percent higher than usual, assuming the rate adjustment will be implemented on staggered basis as announced.  It was not; in fact, it was even slightly lower than last month. Thank God, I meekly said to myself, Meralco had probably decided to postpone the collection of the rate hike to January in the spirit of Christmas.

But I got the most pleasant surprise in my life when, attached to my December billing, was a letter advising me that: (a) I have some P4,400 bill deposits and interest earnings to my credit (I really didn’t realize this; it must have been included in small, negligible amounts in my monthly bills over the years); (b) pursuant to a bill deposit update made recently, my average monthly bill amounts to only about P3,400, and so I have an excess deposit of P1,000 to be refunded in my current—presumably, in my case, January 2014—bill; and (c) if I am able to pay my monthly electricity bills on or before due date for three consecutive years (methinks most everybody is, lest his or her service be disconnected), my bill deposit would be refunded to me in full.

Now, why am I writing all of these?  Well, for the simple reason that what is true to me as a Meralco customer is true to everyone else. I mean, most of us could expect a partial refund of our outstanding bill deposits in our current/next billing, of course in varying amounts, yet certainly enough to at least mitigate the impact of Meralco’s imminent power rate hike.

I do not know how others think of this, but for me—always give credit where credit is due—this unforeseen happenstance is surely among the most welcome blessings of this holiday season. I venture to state that all of us, in good conscience, do believe that Meralco is truly entitled to the rate hike it is asking—well, provided there was no collusion among the power-generating companies when they went on practically simultaneous shutdowns.  It would certainly be an entirely different story if there was, but let’s cross that bridge when we shall have reached it.

Meanwhile, it would not probably be too much of an extra holiday gift from Meralco if maybe, just maybe, it could also consider refunding the customers’ respective bill deposits now in full, or without waiting for three years to prove that they do pay their bills on time.  After all, the threat of service disconnection always looms as sufficient guarantee of payment under the circumstances.  On the other hand, such refund would enable the power-consuming public to contend with the other cost burdens that await them in due course, to wit: cooking gas, petroleum and passenger fares via jeepneys and rail transits.  Methinks that without these increased costs coming suddenly and simultaneously, the Meralco power hike petition would not have been as monumentally abhorrent to the nation as it quite unfortunately has been.

—RUDY L. CORONEL,

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