Meralco slammed over prepaid power scheme

MANILA, Philippines - The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines on Monday said power distributor Manila Electric Co. should be sanctioned for its prepaid electricity scheme, saying it violates the provisions of the Magna Carta for Residential Electricity Consumers.

"Meralco openly violated the magna carta with the implementation of the scheme. We believe the Meralco should be punished for abusing and skirting the law. Access to electricity, just like water, is a basic human right. These are our political rights as a Filipino that cannot be waived by saying this is voluntary on the part of consumers. Meralco cannot do this," Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions-TUCP, said.

Seno was reacting to reports that Meralco launched last week the Prepaid Retail Electricity Service scheme last week.

For his part, TUCP executive director Louie Corral said that the magna carta protects residential electricity consumers by disallowing electricity supply disconnection beyond 3 p.m. at any day during the week, any time during weekends, official holidays, when a permanent occupant in the house is sick and dependent on a life-support system, when the owner is not in the house and when there is a funeral wake in the house.

With the prepaid scheme, electricity automatically shuts off when customers ran out of load, Corral said.

Introduced as voluntary and innovative last week, Corral added that the prepaid scheme was implemented without public consultation and does away workers for it no longer require bill collectors, meter readers, linesmen, and branch office staffs.

"There are also no guarantees that the customers of the kuryente prepaid load scheme system are protected from the same ‘dagdag-bawas’ problems many experience with prepaid mobile phone service providers. The real issue here is that the price of electricity is high and Meralco is shifting the issue," he said.

The scheme was formally launched last week by Meralco after several years of pilot-testing in Angono and Taytay towns in Rizal province.