MANILA, Philippines - The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) will continue to press Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, to pay its obligations to the grid operator even as the Supreme Court has temporarily prevented it from collecting higher electricity rates from customers.
Meralco owes NGCP roughly P124 million, representing unpaid transmission charges for the November 2013 billing period.
In a briefing yesterday, Cynthia Manriquez, head of NGCP’s Revenue and Regulatory Affairs, said Meralco has not paid its debt and that the company would continue to issue letters to press the power distributor to fulfill its unpaid obligations.
“We will continue to advise them to pay,†she said.
However, she stressed that this was the first time Meralco has been unable to meet its obligations.
Nonetheless, she said the issuance of the demand letter is a standard operating procedure allowed under existing rules.
The unpaid amount would continue to pile up because of interest, she also noted, but could not immediately divulge the amount of interest charges to be slapped on Meralco.
Meralco has been unable to pay NGCP and its suppliers after the Supreme Court issued on Dec. 23 a 60-day temporary restraining order (TRO) against Meralco’s record high December generation rate increase of P3.44 per kilowatt-hour (kwh).
The TRO has prevented Meralco from collecting higher charges from its 5.3 million customers.
In effect, instead of a generation charge of P9.10 per kwh, Meralco is constrained to peg last month’s generation charge at just P5.67 per kwh because of the TRO.
The same goes for the January 2014 billing as Meralco chose to peg the month’s generation charge at P5.67 per kwh although the actual rate has risen to P10.23 per kwh, in deference to the TRO.
The generation charge is the cost of power purchased by Meralco for the previous month’s supply. It is the biggest component of electricity cost, accounting for 65 percent.
Aside from NGCP, some power firms have also issued collection letters.
These are AES Masinloc for more than P436 million, San Miguel Energy Corp. for P8 million and South Premiere Power Corp. for P856 million.
With the TRO in place, Meralco has instructed its customers to defer payment of its December 2013 billing and instead pay the amount equivalent to their November 2013 bills.
The high court has scheduled oral arguments on the petitions against Meralco’s rate hike on Jan. 21.