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Iloilo City is under the exclusive franchise of service of Panay Electric Company
(Meralco), considered one of the oldest private power distribution utility in the
country, and with more than 40,000 consumers.
In a comparative table of rates prepared by FDC (See Table 1), it revealed that
Iloilo City is paying the most expensive household electricity if compared to the
same category of consumers located in other key cities in the Philippines like
Leyte, Cebu, Bacolod, Davao, General Santos or even in the country’s capital
Manila.
On the other hand, Davao City consumers is billed P1,339.65 or P6.87/kWh rate
while General Santos has P1,066.65 or P5.47/kWh.
“What could be the best explanation over this issue when PECO has been found
out to have overcharged consumers amounting to millions of pesos since the
1990’s and was even ordered to refund by the Energy Regulatory Commission,”
stressed Ong.
Ted Aldwin Ong underscored, that “the power utility is committing a great
injustice to the Ilonggo citizens for it has repeatedly failed to justify why its
rates is skyrocketing yet its quality of service is way below par.”
Ong was referring to the daily power outages wrapping the city since January.
The group has been criticizing PECO on the “everyday power blackout which
hampered livelihood and economic activity and diminishing putting productivity
levels to all time low while charging the same kilowatt-hour rates in spite of the
services it did not deliver to its consumers.
Moreover, the group also revealed that Iloilo City is not only the highest in
terms of electricity rates in the country, but surprisingly, also in the world.
Another look at the data showing Iloilo City electricity rates versus other
developed and progressive cities in the world shows that Iloilo City has also the
highest electricity rates,” added Ong.
“Our government officials starting from the President of the Republic, to our
Senators, down to our honorable Congresspersons are easy-go-lucky on the
power issue for maybe they are not aware that wherever you go in the
Philippines, we pay for the highest electricity rates compared to other citizens
of the world, especially those who are located in highly-developed nations,”
said Ong.
Disturbed about the cost of electricity in Iloilo City, retired Professor Pablo
Española of the University of the Philippines-Visayas investigated the prevailing
rates in other places in the world from the years 1994 to 2002 and was shocked
to learn about its result. (See Table 2)
According to retired Prof. Española, “although the data is at least eight years
old, the global electricity rate during those years was on a downward trend. It
shows that there is little chance rates in other countries would be much higher
today than they were during those years.”
Table 1. Comparative Monthly Electricity Rates Iloilo City versus other cities
Monthly
Distribution Monthly kWh Per kWh
Region City electricity
Utility consumption rate
bill
National
Manila Electric
Capital Manila 195 P10.00 P1,950.00
Co. (Meralco)
Region
South Cotobato
Region XII - General
Electric
Soccsksarge Santos 195 P5.46 P1,064.70
Cooperative
n City
(Socoteco II)
Central Negros
Region VI –
Bacolod Electric
Western 195 P6.43 P1,255.00
City Cooperative
Visayas
(Ceneco)
Region VI –
Panay Electric
Western Iloilo City 195 P13.30 P2,595.95
Company (PECO)
Visayas
NOTE: Data generated from August 2010 Monthly Electricity Bill by PECO
Peso
Country
equivalent/kWh
OECD 4.72
Argentina 3.87
Australia 3.60
Austria 5.35
Barbados 9.18
Belgium 5.94
Bolivia 2.97
Brazil 5.76
Canada 2.70
Chile 3.87
China 1.53
Chinese Taipei
3.37
(Taiwan)
Colombia 2.88
Cuba 6.03
Denmark 9.40
Ecuador 2.47
El Salvador 3.69
Finland 3.82
France 4.59
Germany 5.58
Grenada 10.03
Greece 3.46
Guatemala 3.55
Guyana 2.70
Haiti 3.06
Honduras 3.42
Hungary 3.60
India 1.75
Indonesia 1.12
Ireland 4.27
Italy 6.07
Jamaica 6.57
Japan 9.63
Kazakhstan 1.17
Luxembourg 5.04
Mexico 3.37
Netherlands 6.97
Nicaragua 5.31
Norway 3.19
Panama 5.44
Paraguay 2.83
Philippines (Iloilo
12.56
City)
Peru 4.50
Poland 3.78
Portugal 5.71
Romania 1.62
Russia 0.22
Slovak Republic
2.83
(Slovakia)
Spain 4.90
Sweden 4.54
Switzerland 5.26
Thailand 2.70
Uruguay 6.16
Venezuela 2.16
NOTE: The data was prepared by retired Professor Pablo Española of the
University of the Philippines-Visayas and shared to FDC-Iloilo. The rates were
converted using the exchange rate of 1.00 US Dollar = 44.99 Philippine Peso.
This data generated spanned the years 1994-2002, except for Iloilo City,
Philippines, which was taken from the billing month of July, 2010, issued by
Panay Electric Company (PECO).
Contact Person:
Ted Aldwin E. Ong, chairperson @ +63.919.930.8908