‘Meralco poised for another record year’

MANILA, Philippines — Tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan is optimistic that power giant Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is headed for another record year, with earnings likely to exceed its 2025 high of P50.6 billion.

Pangilinan, who chairs Meralco, said the company was already seeing strong results, driven by both its power generation and distribution utility (DU) businesses.

In particular, DU sales volumes were robust in the first half, while the initial energization of the P200-billion MTerra Solar project is expected to further boost generation output.

I think the full-year (2026) profits would be ahead of last year,” Pangilinan told reporters on the sidelines of Meralco’s annual stockholders’ meeting yesterday.

Despite the upbeat outlook, Pangilinan said Meralco remains watchful for potential headwinds in an already challenging market environment.

“There could be new challenges that we don’t know. Right now, the worst challenge is the Iran-US situation,” he added.

Last year, Meralco reached an all-time high of P50.6 billion in earnings on the back of higher electricity sales and steady performance of the DU business.

The country’s largest power utility ended 2025 with 8.22 million customers, marking a 2.2-percent increase from the prior year.

Building on this momentum, Meralco aims to expand its customer base by growing its franchise through strategic partnerships with other utilities and economic zones.

“For Meralco, franchise expansion is not only about geographic reach — it is about extending the proven Meralco operating model into new growth corridors,” Meralco executive vice president and COO Ronnie Aperocho said.

As part of this strategy, the company is eyeing investments in electric cooperatives serving Batangas and South Cotabato to broaden its service footprint.

In the power generation business, Meralco continues to build its pipeline and sustain its growth, especially in the renewable energy space.

Meralco, through power generation arm Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN), is setting its sights on more than 1,000 hectares of new parcels of land for future projects.

“This is how MGEN is moving in the renewables space — leading the country’s energy transition with projects that are large-scale, already delivering and built for the long term,” MGEN president and CEO Emmanuel Rubio said.

By year-end, MGEN expects its generation capacity to increase to 6,800 megawatts from 5,069 MW in 2025.