July 21, 2020 | 12:04 am
THE Energy Regulatory
Commission (ERC) has so far counted 12 distribution utilities (DUs) under
evaluation for possible violations of its advisories on issuing bills during
the quarantine months.
The commission
earlier revealed it received more than 47,000 consumer complaints on billings
in the past months since the pandemic-induced lockdown started mid-March.
“From consumer
complaints that we received, we have 12 DUs for evaluation,” ERC Spokesperson
Floresinda B. Digal said in a message, without disclosing those utilities.
When asked for full disclosure of said complaints, the Philippine Rural
Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca) in a statement said the ERC
divulged about 52 complaints involving 34 electric cooperatives.
Most of these
complaints were presumed to pertain to billing concerns, while a few were about
power interruptions.
The group, which extended
its hands to aid the agency in calling out the attention of concerned
utilities, said the involved cooperatives were already apprised of those
grievances. Still, they are waiting for the full details of said complaints to
resolve them.
In easing bill
shocks, Philreca said electric cooperatives are still conducting information
campaign explaining the reasons why their customers incurred increases in their
consumption over the quarantine months.
“In addition to the
quarantine restrictions that happened during the months of March until now,
these past few months are historically the period when consumption increases
due to the summer season,” it said.
Recently, the ERC
ordered those utilities who have failed to comply with its advisories during
the quarantine period to pay back customers of some collected bill portions.
These are the feed-in-tariff allowance (FiT-All), which collection was
suspended in March and April, and the universal charge-environmental charge,
which was not supposed to be collected starting May.
Power distributors
are also tasked to refund payments to customers who are overbilled and those
who have fully paid their March-June arrears but who intend to pay them on an
installment basis. — Adam J. Ang
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