Meralco ruined my day!
By sharlionse
@sharlionse (739)
Philippines
April 23, 2010 4:19am CST
Upon waking up this morning I was having coffee in our living room when our landlady handed me our Meralco bill for the month of April. My housemate who was outside was laughing when our landlady said we have a very high bill. She said our bill is more than P6,000.00. We thought it was a joke because our normal consumption only costs us less than P4,000.00 monthly. With a fast-beating heart I hurriedly opened the bill and there I saw that we indeed have P6,000 plus electric bill! I thought that the bill was wrong so I looked at our file of previous month's bill and compared the account number. I found out that indeed that was ours.
I also saw that Meralco included a letter inside the bill's envelope saying that they have increased the generation charge by P0.93 per kilowatt hour and that we expect to have a 20 to 25 percent increase from our previous month's bill.
What a day! And I was thinking what the government did before Meralco decided this increase. Did they even negotiated? I was hoping that the government must have done something to save the people from these charges. This is too much and this has to stop. I think the government should give at least a kind of subsidy to Meralco so that the electric company will not pass on the other losses to us consumers.
I learned that during summer the electric company has higher losses on distribution because of the heat. But why during the rainy days, when we have less sun, don't they charge us lesser too? Oh greedy people, spare us!
2 people like this
10 responses
@TheAdvocate (2392)
• Philippines
23 Apr 10
I hear you, girl! We had our own shock about two weeks ago when we received our bill. We had an increase of more than half our usual monthly bill when our usage was the same or at least a little bit less than before because of the rotating brownouts. The news have been trumpeting the increase, but at first we thought that, even with the increase, we would be spared at least this month because we know that we decreased our use. So imagine our shock when we saw that all our efforts at decreasing consumption was for naught!
It seems that because of the low water supply in all our dams, there is not enough hydroelectric power generated. So the power distributor have been forced to buy other sources of power which is allegedly more expensive. So there, last year they killed people trying to save water for summer. This year they are killing people with the high cost of power.
@sharlionse (739)
• Philippines
23 Apr 10
yeah you are so right. so what else can people do but to submit to them now that they have monopolized almost everything. I just can't imagine how are we going to fit our budget for this sudden and enormous increase.
@agv0419 (3022)
• Philippines
23 Apr 10
Yeah they increased there rate. We also surprised in our Meralco bill because our normal consumption is within P1,ooo plus only but now in the month of April it is almost going to P2,000. We are very angry to them why they increasing their rate without informing there customers. They taking advantage us again, we thought our electricity consumption goes down because of brownouts but it's not.
@dorisday1971 (5657)
• Philippines
23 Apr 10
I was also surprised when I received my electric bill.
It was really such a big amount . ..
I hope my bill won't continue to surge.
@rsa101 (37952)
• Philippines
24 Apr 10
Yeah I guess we will all be surprised by it. I had 3k last month where my usual bill would range from 1.9k to 2.8k but this April I got a shocking 3.0+k for my bill and for next month I have to pay for 4k+ in my bills my consumption remained the same but the rate went up. It just very disappointing that my wife and son even went to their relatives for a week to enjoy the vacation and also to save from electricity but then here comes our bill and it even increased by 1k. I really do not know how to pay this right now because I am a bit short of cash I am torn to cancel some of our bills like the cellphone in the meantime to at least be able to pay for electricity. This is really just bad timing for me.
@angelajoy (1825)
• Philippines
24 Apr 10
This price increase really hit Filipinos hard. My boyfriend, who is the breadwinner of his family, is having a hard time coping with this because his salary hasn't increased so he has to lower his standard of living. That's why I'm doing everything I can to help him out, and my parents too. I still live with my parents so I'm not having as hard a time as he is, but I still feel the burden because I give my parents money every month and I just feel like I have to increase the amount of what I'm giving to cope with our monthly expenses.
@ajarvaise (453)
• Philippines
25 Apr 10
Yeah, Meralco really sucks and the bill always seem to go up every month about 1 peso per kph. I always compare the monthly bills whenever a new one comes in and that is what I have observed so far. The consumers are the ones really affected and couple with the oil price hike, I think it's too much burden for us Filipinos. I hope the government can do something about this and ease the suffering of Juan Dela Cruz.
@ersanmiguel (476)
• Philippines
24 Apr 10
same resentment here sharlionse! i don't know how they read our meter. Meralco should have done the increase gradually rather abrupt to show consideration, it's summer and it's el nino-along with th temperature is the high cost of energy expense.
@anne25penn (3305)
• Philippines
23 Apr 10
I am praying that I won't get such a huge bill for May. Since the summer heat is so intense in the afternoons, my mom and I spend around three to four hours extra inside the airconditioned room. Well, its either that or risk having a stroke because of the heat for my mom. I am already expecting for our bill to double its usual rate. I pay only P1300 a month, so I am expecting my bill to jump to around P3000 next month.
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
23 Apr 10
hi sharlionse hi I am in the USA and it seems that all over the various countries utilities seem to be going up. I now live here in a retirement center so have no utility bill per se except that some of my almost one thousand a month rent goes for electricity I am sure. The Gold crest center takes most of my social security and SSI check for rent and board
so its 981 i think a month which is really high. when we were in our apartment our light bill also was high b
because we had a very old refrigerator which I think guzzled electricity. Our Electric plants here are the same, greeedy,greedy, greedy. I feel for you really.
because we had a very old refrigerator which I think guzzled electricity. Our Electric plants here are the same, greeedy,greedy, greedy. I feel for you really.
. 6000 pesos just for electricity seem to much. I guess it's about time you conserve on your usage. But with this heat, i don't think anybody can.
