Wow, we didn’t see this coming.
“On Friday, Jan 17, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said that the recent increase in Manila Electric Company’s distribution charge was unjust and should not be allowed,” reports Vito Barcelo in Manila Standard Today.
The report explained: “The Supreme Court has ordered Meralco to temporarily freeze its rate increase of PHP4.15 per kilowatt hour for December while it hears the petitions for and against it, while the Energy Regulatory Commission has granted the company’s offer to stagger the charge following the consumers’ opposition to it.”
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said, however, that “if Meralco was finally allowed to charge its new rate, many Filipinos especially the poor would suffer from it.”
Pabillo, who is the head of the CBCP’s Permanent Committee on Public Affairs, said, “If even the middle class finds such an increase oppressive, how much more so our society’s less fortunate? It will only make the poor poorer.”
But, wait, he doesn’t stop there.
Pabillo also said that “Meralco should not take all the blame because the entire government system itself needed fixing.”
Boom!
Photo by user Darth Narutorious (WikiCommons)
