MERALCO violated
magna carta for residential electricity consumers with prepaid
electricity scheme
By TUCP
March 17, 2014
QUEZON CITY – The
Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) wants the Manila
Electric Company (Meralco) punished for violating the provisions of
the Magna Carta for Residential Electricity Consumers after launching
the Prepaid Retail Electricity Service (PRES) scheme or prepaid
electricity last week.
“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 waive by saying this is
voluntary on the part of consumers. Meralco cannot do this,” said
Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions-TUCP.
TUCP executive director
Louie Corral explained that the magna carta protects residential
electricity consumers by disallowing electricity supply disconnection
beyond 3p.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.
Introduced as voluntary and
innovative last week, Corral also pointed out 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 stressed.
The scheme was formally
launched last week by Meralco after several years of pilot-testing in
Angono and Taytay towns in Rizal province.