In a number of ways, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) reminds us of Rameses II, described in the Old Testament as the most oppressive pharaoh (or god-king) Ancient Egypt ever had. By analogy, we Meralco costumers are Rameses II’s oppressed Hebrew slaves, yearning for deliverance, hoping to stage our own exodus from the present untenable situation of exorbitantly high power rates.

We have had to put up with it for too long. The lives of thousands of Hebrew slaves were sacrificed in the construction of the pyramids, the ornate tombs of Egyptian royalty. We are not much different because we are made to pay onerous power rates for the greater glory and strength of the Lopez financial empire.

Meanwhile, the endless rate increases imposed by Meralco come like lacerating whiplashes on our tired, overburdened backs. But now, at least, we have reason to hope Meralco will soon be getting its comeuppance.

But enough of the biblical allusion. Executives of GMA 7, the rival television network of the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN, are now wondering if ABS-CBN has not been paying for its huge power consumption, being a sister company of Meralco. If so, can the management of ABS-CBN, headed by Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, show proof it has been paying for its power bill? If, indeed, ABS-CBN (where the air-conditioners are on 24/7) doesn’t worry about power costs, it’s downright unfair for GMA 7, which has to deal with escalating overhead expenses.

Meralco executives, under intense questioning by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, reluctantly admitted during a hearing called by the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) Monday this week that Meralco itself consumes a total of 72 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity a year. Worth close to P500 million, the cost of this power consumption is passed on by Meralco to its customers.

This damning admission has made everybody wonder whether or not the power bills of 15 Lopez-owned Meralco subsidiaries and sister companies—including media giants ABS-CBN and Bayantel—are being paid for by the public, as well.

How Enrile was able to elicit this damning admission was a fine demonstration of his skill as a trial lawyer. He first got the Meralco consumption figure from Jesus Francisco, Meralco president. He then turned to a Meralco subordinate and asked whether Meralco’s power consumption is being chalked up as a system loss. The subordinate’s answer: No, not as a system loss, but charged to Meralco customers just the same under a different nomenclature. He said Meralco customers have been paying for Meralco’s own power bills ever since at P5.70 per kWh.

Winston Garcia, president-general manager of the Government Service Insurance System, buried Meralco deeper by pointing out that Meralco should not only be paying for the electricity it uses, but should also be paying the commercial rate of P8 per kWh. Meralco is a commercial enterprise that exists for profit. With no power bills to worry about, no wonder Meralco has posted a 60-percent increase in revenue in the first quarter of the year, Garcia said.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, JCPC chair, also scored a point when she drew out the admission that Meralco buys power from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) during peak hours when prices are naturally high, while it sources its power from the Lopez-owned independent power producers (IPPs) during non-peak hours. She said there may be an effort to show that Lopez-owned IPPs sell power at rates cheaper than those it procures from the National Power Corp. and WESM.

Meralco’s dealings with its own IPPs become a big issue when it comes to lowering power rates. Garcia said this was why he was demanding copies of all Meralco contracts with the Lopez-owned IPPs. Transparency is of the utmost importance, he said.

Transparency would be essential in determining where and how much Meralco is sourcing not only electricity, but also its meters, transformers, wires, etc. There should also be transparency in its collection of electric bills from its sister companies; transparency in all the contracts entered into by Meralco, including insurance agreements with what is suspected to be a bogus insurance firm based in the Bahamas.

Garcia says he intends to make the Lopezes fully accountable to Meralco shareholders and customers. “They must be made accountable to the fullest intent of the law,” he adds.

Garcia is not exactly the prophet Moses imbued with miraculous powers to part the Red Sea so we, captive Meralco customers, can pass through to safety. But he certainly has what it takes to shake up the Meralco corporate structure to its rafters.

And, just the other day, another champion of Meralco customers emerged, this time in the House of Representatives, in the person of Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte. In a scathing privileged speech, Villafuerte offered documentary evidence that something’s very wrong with those contracts between Meralco and the Lopez-owned IPPs.

Villafuerte railed against “ghost deliveries” worth P1.08 billion a month from the Lopez-owned First Gas Power to Meralco, fictitious deliveries that were all charged to Meralco customers from December 2000 to November 2001.

The interesting details of the Villafuerte exposé—plus the denial by the Lopez side, to be fair—would best be the subject of my next column.  

Omerta_bdc@yahoo.com

SO what’s wrong with the President taking time to hobnob with the global CEOs or top executives of multinational firms? That was the retort of Palace officials to fresh revelations of sightings of President Arroyo and her husband in Shenzen on a private golf course owned by—drum roll—the Chinese telecom giant ZTE Co. Yes, the ZTE of the aborted national broadband network (NBN) deal that stirred a hornet’s nest and engaged the country for several weeks.

Banking regulators still don’t get it: The best candidate for making access to finance truly universal in a developing country is the mobile phone.

In my former life as a newspaper editor, my late publisher would reprimand the desk every time the newspaper came out late on issue day. In his opinion, a newspaper, no matter how well-put editorially, was ultimately useless if it did not get to the market on time—and that means on the streets and in readers’ hands by sunup.

Omerta: Meralco’s comeuppance

In a number of ways, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) reminds us of Rameses II, described in the Old Testament as the most oppressive pharaoh (or god-king) Ancient Egypt ever had. By analogy, we Meralco costumers are Rameses II’s oppressed Hebrew slaves, yearning for deliverance, hoping to stage our own exodus from the present untenable situation of exorbitantly high power rates.

Servant Leader: ‘Spe Salvi’–Part XVII

Judgment: a setting for learning and practicing hope

“He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

From the earliest times, the prospect of the Judgment has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience and, at the same time, as hope in God’s justice. Faith in Christ has never looked merely backward or merely upward, but always also forward to the hour of justice that the Lord repeatedly proclaimed.