THE consumer group Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW) urged power-industry stakeholders such as the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to be transparent in their rate adjustment, particularly when they increase their charges to their customers.

“They [Meralco] failed to include their foreign-exchange gains at a time when the peso continues to strengthen,” Raul T. Concepcion, businessman and COPW chairman, told reporters in a press conference.

He added that Meralco has not reflected foreign-exchange gains in consumers’ electricity bills in January of last year.

Concepcion noted that Meralco has not collected or refunded the Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (Cera) to its customers at a time when the peso continues to strengthen against the dollar.

Concepcion urged the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to compel the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and other distribution utilities like Meralco to disclose power rate-related information on their web site.

“We will request a weekly and monthly meeting with concerned government agencies and sectors to help ease the burden of consumers by forewarning them of power adjustments by the distribution utilities covering lifeline rates and interclass subsidy as soon as generation companies and the National Transmission Corp. [Transco] submit their bills to the distribution utilities,” Concepcion said.

He explained that the cost of power in April is what Napocor, Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) and independent power producers (IPPs) billed to distribution utilities in March.

“The government could have helped ease the burden of consumers by forewarning them of power adjustments as soon as generation companies and Transco bill the distribution utilities,” Concepcion said.

Meralco, on the other hand, attributed the noncollection or refund of the Cera owing to a P12-billion debt refinance it undertook in 2006 following the Supreme Court’s favorable ruling on unbundling case, as well as refinancing of some of its loans.

In December 2006 Meralco successfully raised P12 billion of Fixed-Rate and Floating-Rate corporate notes to refinance its existing secured loan obligations, as well as fund its working capital requirement.

Meralco noted that the deal was the largest debt-capital issue in the Philippines to date that was executed in less than two months, and will have a tenor of seven years to be secured by a negative pledge—which will take out Meralco’s existing Mortgage Trusting Indenture.

Of the P12-billion total issue amount, Meralco said P6 billion constitutes the Fixed-Rate Tranche, with an interest rate of 9-percent per annum, while the balance of P6 billion represents the Floating-Rate Tranche, which was auctioned off last December 4.

THE consumer group Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW) urged power-industry stakeholders such as the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to be transparent in their rate adjustment, particularly when they increase their charges to their customers.

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