The Electricity Heist: How your monthly bill doubled yet nobody is accountable.

The people are rightly angry about their electricity bills doubling, tripling, for almost all residential homes — these are not isolated complaints. A big part of this is the US Iran war where just like diesel or gasoline, our electricity rates went up, P0.222 per kwh  in February, P0.642 kwh in March, P 0.533 kwh in April, mysteriously decreasing in May by  a ridiculous P0.015 kwh (just more than one centavo)and then up again P0.148 kwh  In June. Or a total increase P1.557/kilowatt hour for the past five months.

Meralco says the culprit is higher generation charges from power plants and WESM volatility, but this explanation, though technically correct, is ultimately unsatisfying and incomplete. What we are seeing is nothing less than systemic failure of regulation, market oversight and corporate accountability. Because from our experience with the power producers and their Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), our electric bills are largely “manipulated, and the real problem is that what we have is a rigged system.

The current Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) is not a free market – it is a playground for collusion disguised as market forces. Historical research has already documented numerous cases. Power generators are limited in their ability in order to declare an artificial supply. Plant operators cooperate in an anti-competitive manner to artificially raise their prices. The so called Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP) mechanisms allow extreme price spikes during peaks of demand.

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After the Middle East exploded, and the power generation players went to work. And because our system is so rigged and corrupt,  power generators game the system while ERC allows it, and at the end,  the consumers do not pay the “true cost of electricity.”  We all pay the manipulated cost. The so-called ERC Secondary Price Cap is a joke, insiders say. This price cap has become a go-to place during emergencies as a circuit broker. It was imposed 3.89% of the time in last month or in May 2026 alone. This is not emergency protection, this is the new normal dressed up as a temporary exception.

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The government needs to recognize the seething public anger on  the present leadership in the Energy Regulatory Commission which to many has failed their Core Mandate. This Commission meant to protect the electric consumers has been neutered by political and corporate pressure (power plants are owned by tycoons and conglomerates and at the same time political party financiers). Market anomalies, anticompetitive behavior and illegal practices are still evident while  ERC is business as usual and  continues to approve rate increases. It halts WESM operations for a while and lifts it without substantive structural reform. Unfortunately for us consumers, ERC allows the costs to be passed through, insulating power generators from accountability.

Meralco said Philippine electricity rates reflect the “true cost” because there are no subsidies from the government. This is a false equivalency. Singapore’s rates (often cited as comparable) benefit from efficient transparent regulation and lower fuel costs due to regional proximity. For example, Japan has lower rates, even though it’s an island nation, but that’s because their regulatory framework really prevents market manipulation. We have higher electricity rates because we allow a broken system in the ERC and WESM and other stakeholders. We’re not paying what electricity really costs. We are paying the actual cost PLUS a manipulation premium extracted by generators, compounded by regulatory failure .

The standard Meralco answer to outrage: “Monitor your consumption. Use LED bulbs. Take charge of your energy. This actually is blaming the victim. For example, a household using 200kWh will see a P30 increase in June alone. This is P360+ in forced increases – money that could feed a family for days. For more than a year. Meralco itself admits its distribution charge is just 12% of the bill. The other 88% is pass through cost . So because Meralco is only collecting and passing through, they have little incentive to fight for consumers against the power generators?  Did they question or criticize WESM and the culprits behind our  outrageous electricity bills?

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The Cacia Mitra Case, in truth, just showed the arrogance of these power generators and the whole system. When a celebrity’s bill goes viral, the response was cold, “Her account is high-load service. Consumption is within the normal range. the system did nothing wrong. Live with it.

There was no apology from ERC nor from the culprit power generators. No acknowledgement of the wider crisis. No promise to look into why regular seasonal use results in bills that could bankrupt families. Enough is enough.

The people want answers and real action on these problems.First, the ERC must conduct a forensic audit of WESM pricing **in the last 12 months and impose sanctions on generators who will be found to be involved in manipulation. Second, WESM itself needs to be structurally reformed, with transparent bidding, real-time public price data and meaningful secondary price caps.Third, Meralco’s pass-through model needs reform with performance incentives to negotiate lower generation costs . Fourth, while these investigations are in progress, a temporary freeze on rates should be put in place.And lastly, Malacañang together with the Senators and Congressmen should find a way to subsidize the low-income households which must be implemented immediately. The argument that other countries do not subsidize is irrelevant because we cannot afford to pay our electricity bills compared to them.

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Our consumers may be ignorant of their monthly electric usage but they are angry because the entire nation is being systematically exploited by a regulatory system that have already capitulated to political and corporate interests.

It’s insulting and wrong to tell people to manage their consumption. It assumes that the problem is with the consumers and the doubling electricity bills, but the truth and the fact is that what we have today is a market failure.

And this administration should tell the ERC asap to fulfill its mandate and the authority it was given. Serious problems will happen if it doesn’t address this public anger over our electricity bills.” (next)

Senators at war with themselves and we all pay the price

Our Senate  has become a cesspool of personal animus, pretending to be governance. The recent resolution of the Senate President matter did nothing to fix the problem — it simply papered over a chasm of dysfunction that widens daily.

What we are seeing in the upper chamber is not legitimate political disagreement. It’s petty warfare in legislative robes. Senators who sat in committee meetings together don’t talk to each other in the hallways. The charges have become so personal, so vicious, that the floor of the Senate has become a theatre of contempt, not a forum for deliberation.

This is not how a democratic institution is supposed to work. These are not playground disagreements-these are disputes that threaten the constitutional fabric that gives the Senate its power. “When Senators put personal grudges over their legislative responsibility, they are betraying every Filipino who voted them into office.

Senators like to use the word “honor” a lot. They talk about their duty to the people, their devotion to the Constitution, their commitment to public service. But their behavior reveals the emptiness of such claims. There is no honor in refusing to work with your co-workers. There’s no honor in letting personal animus freeze legislative action. There is no honor in wasting taxpayers’ money in internecine power struggles while millions of Filipinos struggle to pay for electricity, food and medicine.

The people who voted them in office expects them to put aside differences for the good of the whole. But senators have decided to turn their offices into weapons against each other and make the Senate a battleground for political and financial power. That is corruption in parliamentary language. And it’s contemptible.

The Senate will remain broken, not because of structural issues, but because senators have chosen self-interest over public service. The upper house will continue that way,  wasting resources and betraying public trust, until it understands that its responsibility to the country is greater than its hunger for political dominance.

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People deserve better. Democracy should be better. And the Constitution requires it.