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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
The Energy Regulatory Commission has ordered
private distribution utilities, or DUs, which include giant utility
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), to refund with interests their
customers’ deposits for electric meters by November this year.
In a decision, the regulatory commission
approved the rules requiring the refund of meter deposits to
customers of power utilities not later than six months from its
effectivity for the DUs, and within two years in the case of
non-stock and non-profit electric cooperatives, or ECs.
In line with the approval, the commission’s
chairman, Rodolfo Albano Jr., on Friday called for the
“cooperation of both the DUs and the electricity consumers to
facilitate the orderly and prompt implementation of the
meter-deposit refund” as soon as the rules become effective 15
days after publication in newspapers.
The regulatory commission said it had approved
the refund rules as prescribed under the Magna Carta for Residential
Electricity Consumers, which it promulgated on June 17, 2004, and
the Distribution Services (Magna Carta) and Distribution System Open
Access Rules, which it declared on January 18, 2006.
Private utility customers are entitled to
interest income on their meter deposits in accordance with the rates
stipulated in the rules.
Residential and non-residential customers who
paid their meter deposits prior to the effectivity of Resolution
95-21 (Standard Rules Governing Electrical Power Services
promulgated on September 22, 1995) will be entitled to annual
interest of 6 percent. The resolution was issued by the Energy
Regulatory Board, forerunner of the regulatory commission.
Meter deposits that were paid from the
effectivity of Resolution 95-21 until the day prior to the
effectivity of the Magna Carta (for residential customers) or open
access rules (for non-residential customers) will earn an annual
interest of 10 percent.
Meter deposits paid from the effectivity of the
Magna Carta or open access rules until the day prior the start of
the refund will be entitled to an annual interest of 6 percent.
Thus, the payment of 6-percent or 10-percent interest will depend on
when the meter deposit was paid.
At the option of the customers, the mode of
refund of the deposit and interests shall either be in cash, check
or credit to the customer’s future monthly billings or as an
offset to other due and demandable claims against the customer.
Customers of electric cooperatives will get
their deposits back but without any interests since these
cooperatives do not earn any profits.
The modes of their refunds are almost similar to
those of private utility except that customers of the electric
cooperatives have the option to convert their meter deposits as
contributions (equity), which must be recorded in the financial
books of the cooperatives.
Customers applying for refunds are required to
present valid proofs of identification and registration, such as
bills.
At present, Meralco seems to be the most
embattled among the private distribution utilities, with the
Lopez-owned firm facing estafa charges before the Department of
Justice.
Estafa case at DOJ
Also on Friday, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez
formed a panel of prosecutors to conduct preliminary investigation
of the P898-million syndicated estafa charges filed by a consumer
group against top officials of the utility. He said Jaime Umpa,
Cagayan de Oro regional state prosecutor, will head the panel. “We
named a prosecutor from Mindanao so that so that there would no
accusations of partiality,” Gonzalez added.
The Justice chief said he had approved temporary
waiving of collection of filing fee from the complainant, the
National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms.
According to Gonzalez, the consumer association
can pay the balance of its docket fee in installments when it wins
its case against Meralco. He pointed out that the association can
only collect from Meralco after it pays the fee in full.
The normal filing fee for an estafa case is 10
percent of the amount being claimed. In this case, the consumer
association has to pay P8.9 million.
The consumer association filed the charges on
May 29 and named respondents were Meralco Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer Manuel Lopez; Jesus Francisco, Meralco president;
and board directors Arthur Defensor Jr., Gregory Domingo, Octavio
Victor Espiritu, Christian Monsod, Federico Puno, Washington Sycip,
Emilio Vicente, Francisco Viray and Cesar Virata.
Also included in the complaint were Daniel
Tagaza, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Rafael
Andrada, first vice president and treasurer; Helen de Guzman, vice
president and corporate auditor and compliance officer; Antonio
Valera, vice president and assistant comptroller; and Manolo
Fernando, senior assistant vice president and assistant treasurer.
Pete Ilagan, the consumer association’s
president, claimed that they filed the complaint against Meralco
after they discovered that least P898 million in interests due to
Meralco’s non-residential and commercial customers had been
declared by the company as automatic income for its stockholders, as
shown in the company’s 2006 financial statements.
“While the Lopezes haggle for interest rates
accruing [on] our deposits, they conveniently hid from the public
the fact that they had already disposed of the money intended to
cover interest payments to us,” Ilagan said.
The association said it had originally filed a
case before the Securities and Exchange Commission but nothing
happened there.
It alleged that Meralco committed large-scale
estafa, because the money is in the nature of a fund that should
have been held in trust by Meralco for its consumers, because it
must be paid back to them.
Large-scale estafa is a non-bailable offense
under the Revised Penal Code.
The case stemmed from a 1995 Energy Regulatory
Board ruling that the interest rate for the meter and bill deposits
for Meralco customers should be 10 percent. Meralco has been
contesting the 10 percent, insisting that it should only be 6
percent.
The Supreme Court ordered Meralco in 2003 to
refund P30 billion of its income tax which it passed on to consumers
from 1994 to 2002. In 2004, the High Tribunal also disallowed a
provisional increase that Meralco charged its customers without
public hearings.
-- With William B. Depasupil
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