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Meralco has once again reiterated a vital point about its power rates: it doesn’t have the authority to just decide how much to charge its consumers. Every single component of its rates has to pass through the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for approval. Those charges on your electricity bill go through public hearings, rigorous scrutiny, and a lot of paperwork.

The conversation around Meralco’s rates has been heating up recently, with allegations of overcharging thrown into the mix. Meralco is calling these accusations baseless and, well, flat-out wrong. For starters, the company’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC)—a fancy term for determining returns on investments—is decided by the ERC. The last time this was updated for Meralco was back in 2011, and it applied to a specific period (2011–2015). And just to put things in perspective, Meralco’s WACC was the lowest compared to other distribution utilities at that time.

After the 2015 cutoff, the ERC didn’t conduct another rate reset. Instead, Meralco proactively applied for a lower interim rate, which the ERC further reduced to P1.3522 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the period covering 2015 to 2022. As a result, Meralco refunded a whopping P48 billion to its consumers from 2021 to 2023.

Regarding claims of overstatement of assets and double charging, Meralco says they’re pure fiction. It notes that these accusations stem from dissenting opinions in the ERC’s final decision on Meralco’s rates and from the statements of a retired ERC official. Meralco is standing firm, emphasizing that it operates strictly within the rules set by the ERC and will follow the majority decision, as per democratic principles.

Meralco assures that it wants its customers to know it’s committed to delivering stable, reliable, and affordable electricity while supporting the government in nation-building.