Consumer group asked utilities: Freeze rate hike

CEBU, Philippines — Cebuano households are heading into the 2025 holiday season under renewed pressure from higher utility costs and lingering concerns over power reliability, prompting consumer advocates to call for a rate freeze and a “zero-outage” guarantee during Christmas.

Nathaniel Chua, convenor of the Cebu Electricity Rights Advocates (CERA), said the simultaneous increases in electricity and water charges are forcing many families into difficult trade-offs at a time when household spending typically peaks.

“Families are being pushed to choose between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table,” Chua said, warning that many consumers are nearing a breaking point.

The appeal follows a year marked by grid fragility and intermittent outages, with consumer groups arguing that residents should be spared service disruptions and bill shocks during the holidays. December, CERA said, should bring stability rather than added financial strain for households already grappling with rising living costs.

Pressure intensified after the Metropolitan Cebu Water District implemented a 12-percent water rate hike effective October 1, 2025, increasing monthly bills by about ?56 for households consuming 21 cubic meters.

On the power side, Cebu Electric Cooperative III (CEBECO III) reported that December residential rates rose by ?0.47 per kilowatt-hour, reflecting higher generation and system charges.

CERA also warned of the risk of further adjustments, noting that utilities nationwide—including Manila Electric Co.—have cited fuel costs as a driver of higher rates. Cebu consumers, Chua said, are particularly exposed to volatile generation charges and pass-through costs linked to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

“These pass-on charges and elevated WESM prices already weighed on bills earlier this year,” Chua said, calling for greater transparency in December billing and a clear breakdown of all charges to ensure that no unauthorized costs are passed on to consumers.

The impact, he added, is uneven across the workforce. While corporate and government employees typically receive 13th-month pay, a large segment of Cebu’s labor force—casual and job-order workers, street vendors, habal-habal drivers, and those in the informal economy—receive no holiday bonuses, leaving them more vulnerable to utility price increases.

Beyond pricing, CERA is also pressing for more equitable service reliability. The group is urging distribution utilities to ensure that far-flung municipalities receive the same level of reliability as urban centers, including a “zero-outage” Christmas.

Proposed measures include pre-positioning maintenance crews for rapid response and prioritizing power lines serving essential facilities such as water systems and hospitals to prevent a dual utility crisis.

CERA is calling on all Cebu distribution utilities to suspend any planned rate adjustments in the first quarter of 2026 and to impose a temporary moratorium on disconnections for low-income households until the end of January.

“The people of Cebu deserve a holiday season without outages and without bill shocks,” Chua said. “Stability, at least through Christmas, should be the baseline.”