In announcing the rate reduction, Meralco merely reprised what it did last month, which was to announce a 50-centavo reduction in its kWh rate. While there was really no explanation given, one had the feeling that Meralco (the Lopezes) wanted us to think that this was their doing. Not so.

Meralco does not deserve credit for the power rate reductions since, in the first place, the P0.50 reduction was due to the pricing of the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM). (Meralco sources less than 10 percent of the power it distributes from the WESM.)

The 30-centavo reduction, on the other hand, was due to the generation charge rate cut imposed by the Energy Regulatory Commission on Napocor. We also owe ERC nothing since the reality is that Napocor itself applied to ERC for its rates to be reduced.

We owe Meralco (and the Lopezes) nothing.

The records of the ERC show that Meralco charges the highest rates in the country today, both commercial and residential. While other distributors are charging in the range of six to seven pesos per kilowatt hour, Meralco makes a killing by billing us 10 pesos per kilowatt hour.

So, while the 30-centavo Napocor-initiated power rate reduction effected by Meralco is most welcome, there is still the question of the difference of P2 to P3 per kWh Meralco charges its customers that other power distributors do not charge theirs.

If there is a price difference of as much as P3, then the P0.30 reduction is just 10 percent off the amount it may be overcharging us, its customers. While Meralco often explains that it makes money only on what it charges for distribution, thus keeping only 13 percent or less of the amount it collects and that the rest are pass-on charges that it pays to power producers such as the Napocor and the government, what makes that almost a blatant lie is that Meralco is buying 55 percent of its power from Lopez IPPs and, not only that, it also purchases everything it can – meters, transformers, wires and all else – from Lopez companies.

For Meralco to buy 55 percent of its power from Lopez-owned First Gen and First Gas is a blatant violation of the Epira Law because Meralco is buying from Lopez IPPs in violation of its franchise and the Epira provision for distributors to provide its captive market power at the "least cost" to them.

This is why despite the fact that the government has a larger stake than the Lopez family in Meralco (Lopez, 33.4 percent; GSIS and other government GOCCs, 35.7 percent), they will do anything to shut Winston Garcia and whoever else from even just seeing the books of the company, even if their stake in Meralco is larger than that of the Lopez family. If we condemn the government when the ones who run it make money from its operation, isn’t this the same thing that the Lopezes are doing with Meralco at our expense?

This Lopez family wants to eat the whole cake instead of only the 1/3 of Meralco that it has a right to by its shareholdings. . The way I see it, if the Lopezes do not want interference on their turf, they should just seek a separate franchise for their 33.4 percent stake in Meralco.

Let’s face it, the Meralco franchise, whose area accounts for 50 percent of the country’s gross national product (GNP), has become unwieldy. It needs to be partitioned so consumers will be better served and could benefit from lower rates arising from indirect competition among the sub-franchise holders.

This scenario is not without basis as the country’s smaller distributors prove with data culled from the ERC no less. While Meralco charges upwards of P10/kWh, Davao Light charges P6.44/kWh, Visayan Electric (VECO) P6.92, Pampanga P7.63, Bohol P4.92, and Bacolod P5.22.

How, you might want to ask, are the smaller distributors able to charge as much as P2 lower than Meralco? Is there no such thing as economies of scale when it comes to power distribution?

Since their costs, including taxes, are the same, shouldn’t all power distributors be placed in the same boat? If we did that, shouldn’t the economies of scale work towards a Meralco operation that ought to be 20 percent more efficient (and less expensive than the smaller (less efficient) distributors?

If Bohol (probably with 80,000 customers max – 213,215 households with an estimated 1/3 with electricity) can charge only P4.92 per kWh, Meralco’s rate should be around P3.50 per kWh (with its customer base of 4.5 million!).

For this to happen, two things must precede it: 1) Meralco is freed from the clutches of the Lopezes; and 2) The overly-large Meralco franchise area is made more manageable by breaking it into sub-franchises, similar to what was done with our water distribution which was partitioned into two water districts and given to the Maynilad and Manila Water franchises.

***

Our only son-in-law, Reed Wadley who was an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri-Columbia died last Friday in Columbia, Missouri after a long illness. He was discovered to have Ewing’s Sarcoma in April 2006.

Noted Reed: "At 44, I was on the ‘old’ side of the stats for this cancer which normally hits teenage males." The pain began when he was doing field work in Indonesia. (Reed is known for his work with the Iban people of West Kalimantan, Indonesia.) He finished his field work and came home with much pain in his hips and legs that turned out to be deadly cancer.

He earned his doctorate in 1997 at the Arizona State University where he met our daughter Oona, who also earned her doctorate in anthropology this year. They have one child, ten-year old Lucas.

I thank the reader who will offer a prayer for Reed and the ones he left behind, including those in the Wadley and Paredes families.