Refund process for commercial, industrial customers has started, says Meralco

Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has assured its commercial and industrial customers that the processing of their refunds has started.

Meralco issued this statement to answer allegations made by Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) president Jesus Aranza that the refund is long overdue and should now be released to industries.

"We would like to assure FPI that we have in fact started the processing of the refund for Phase IV,"Meralco senior assistant vice president and refund management task force head Leonardo Mabale said.

According to Mabale, the company had already received a Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) detailing the guidelines for Phase IV customers.

But Mabale said as they are readying to send out letters to affected customers based on the RMO, the company got a Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) from the tax bureau, detailing the requirements for value-added tax (VAT).

Since the requirements for Phase IV and VAT are similar, Meralco decided to integrate the letters for both the refund and the VAT.

"Doing so is more convenient for the affected customers since they would just go to the branches once to submit all the requirements," Mabale said.

"We already have sent out letters to Phase IVA customers, which comprise 64 percent of the active customers covered by Phase IV. We hope to be able to deliver the remaining letters for active customers before yearend, including those for Phase IVB and government services," he said.

The Meralco official also assured the business customers that they would get their appropriate refunds.