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AS the battle of words between the Government Security and Insurance
Service (GSIS) and the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) intensifies
at a high level of watts the issues—both relevant and
irrelevant—are coming up are from here, there and everywhere.
The latest missive to reach our desk queries
whether Meralco offices and branches are exempted from paying their
own power consumption worth several billions of pesos. And not
surprisingly, it came from GSIS spokesperson Atty. Estrellita
Elamparo.
She points out that she raises this question
after she received reports that the electricity consumption of
Meralco’s corporate offices and branches were not accounted for.
“If this were true, for how much has Meralco
defrauded the public and for how long? Certainly, it may run to
billions which the suffering public has unknowingly and haplessly
paid for years,” she said.
“Are we paying for their consumption? Or the
firm’s executives charging their consumption to systems losses?
Either way, this practice is highly questionable and unfair to all
of us,” she added.
In this on-going battle, the GSIS—a major
stakeholder in the utility giant which has (some say rather
curiously) suddenly found its voice—maintains that systems losses
from pilferage and inefficient distribution should not be charged to
Meralco customers who pay their bills correctly and promptly.
“Failure to address systems losses is
inefficiency, and we all are entitled to know and hold Meralco
people accountable,” said Elamparo.
She insists that Meralco must answer this and
all other questions that cropped up as a result of Meralco’s lack
of financial and operational transparency in distributing
electricity to its Metro Manila customers.
Elamparo has other questions like: “How come
Meralco has more managers and supervisors than rank and file
employees? Does this explain the fat salaries and perks it give to
its favored personnel?”
She said Meralco should confront, not muddle,
all these questions surrounding the unreasonable high cost of
electricity in Metro Manila and all other issues coming as a result
of its lack of transparency even with its own shareholders,
especially GSIS members and pensioners who collectively hold 33
percent stake in Meralco.
“The GSIS, as a major stakeholder in Meralco,
has raised valid issues which the management of Meralco should
endeavor to answer in a straightforward manner,” she said.
Meralco must answer these questions, rather than
divert public attention away from the power distribution company by
making false allegations against the GSIS operations.
“Muddling the issues on Meralco’s questioned
power rates and its purchase of power from its own independent power
producers will get the company nowhere,” she added.
GSIS president Winston Garcia has been leading a
campaign to protect the investment of GSIS members and pensioners in
Meralco through the opening of its books, the divulging of its
contracts and its computation of electricity bills of customers.
The GSIS has asked Meralco management for
pertinent documents but it had chosen to stonewall citing excuses
which were found unreasonable by the state pension fund.
“At the end of the day, Meralco will have to
confront the issues,” Elamparo said “It cannot go about beating
around the bush as that will only deepen the people’s suspicion
that there may be more than meets the eye on the spikes they see on
their electricity bills.”
Garcia has said GSIS is not out to wrest control
of Meralco, but only wants full transparency and good corporate
governance to be adhered to by the company.
He said Meralco has already been twice
reprimanded by the Supreme Court in 2003 and 2004 for overcharging
its customers, ordering a refund of P30 billion in income taxes
which Meralco passed on to its customers from 1994 to 2002.
Garcia has even wondered aloud why generation
costs being equal in the Visayas and Luzon, Meralco still charges
its Luzon customers more than what power distributors in his native
Cebu charge their customers.
Meralco critics say that Meralco would have
continued adding its income tax charges to the bills of its
customers had it not been stopped by the Supreme Court in 2003.
Garcia had also criticized Meralco for saddling
its four million customers with the so-called systems loss charges
which he said may be allowed by law but is unconscionable to collect
from poor Filipinos.
rjottings@yahoo.com
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