All these talk about Meralco and the high cost of electricity has made me wonder what the average Filipino household’s power bill looks like.
To make the comparison fair, why don’t we divide our electricity bill with the number of persons living in the house, including babies. I think the little darlings consume a bigger amount of electricity compared with the average person (need for airconditioning etc.)
For April, I paid P805.88 per person.
How does that compare with yours?
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Meralco shares went into a nosedive today after news of a possible investigation (good luck with making it look like a friendly Q&A) by Congress into how Meralco runs the show. If there’s anyone in the audience who doesn’t know that this is politically driven, raise your hand.
No hands?
If this entire hullabaloo actually brings down my electricity bill, goodie. But here’s a So What Chocnut snippet that people should not miss.
Exactly 20% of that electricity bill goes to Meralco. If you look at your bill, you will see the biggest portion is called generation charge, which goes to the independent power producers and the National Power Corp.
Yes, that means the government.
That simply means the power to bring down electricity rates is in the government’s hands. And that should make you wonder what the administration is trying to do. This early, the business community is already worried. Of course they are not buying the we-want-to-drive-down-electricity-costs-for-poor-Filipinos line. Former central bank governor and AIG’s standard bearer Joey Cuisia has already been interviewed on television saying, “After Meralco, who next?” Not good for business confidence.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:52 am
P 1,066 for each of three of us.
By the way, just seen Angelo Reyes on TV reasoned out that the gov’t. royalties on natural gas cannot be removed because this is being used by the cash-stripped NPC to buy its fuel.
That means Natural gas fired IPPs are subsidizing NPC but still, NPC sells energy at a steeper price than the IPPs?
Shouldn’t the gov’t. look more into this anomaly?
May 9th, 2008 at 8:35 am
One question to ask is which IPPs do Meralco source their electricity. Meralco always argue that the ncreasing cost in WESM rates and Napocor rates, etc etc. but it turns out that 2 of the three IPPs are actually Lopez owned IPPs. One IPP, quezon power, is an american owned IPP and I’m not sure how much they are sourcing from that american firm. NPC already lowered their rates from January to April, and will again lower their rates this coming rainy season because hydro plants will be in full operation, which by the way has the lowest cost to operate. SO why is meralco increasing its cost while NPC is deacreasing? And why will they charge the consumers system loss when it is the nature of electricity business to have system loss (Physics of electricity)? If oil companies can open up their books to DOE, why don’t Meralco?
May 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
If what Senator Santiago claimed is true then Meralco is cheating both its consumers and stockholders.
Corporate criminals as in the case of Enron must be prosecuted.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
mine is approx 850 php (3 adults, 1 baby)
May 8th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
For March, ours was approx P300/person
For April, it jumped to ~P450/person
For May, I expect it to spike up because of our newly installed airconditioner.
We are 3 adults and a baby living in a 2-bedroom condo unit.