Meralco announces rate refund plan

The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) announced yesterday plans to refund its millions of customers on any excess from the previous collection of currency exchange rate adjustments (CERA).

Meralco also announced it might scrap the collection of CERA, ABS-CBN News Channel reported yesterday.

In the May 2003 approval, CERA was set at 11.87 percent of the distribution charge. The scheme allowed Meralco to automatically pass on to consumers the effect of peso depreciation on principal repayments of foreign debts.

"We feel confident that since we no longer have foreign loans and the exchange rate is favorable, there’s a very high likelihood it (CERA) will no longer find its way in our bills," Meralco president Jesus Francisco told ABS-CBN.

"We are confident that when we do our final accounting, we will have to refund some that we may have overcollected," he said.

Meralco chairman Manolo Lopez explained the power distribution firm — which is 25-percent owned by the government and 23-percent held by a unit of Spain’s Union Fenosa SA — has suspended the collection of CERA starting January.

Lopez pointed out this will result in an average reduction of 7.82 centavos per kilowatt-hour for consumers.