By Jun Cinco

Published: July 16, 2012

Workers led by labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno picketed a Meralco office in Marikina this morning to protest another power rate hike this month, saying it is revolting for the country’s biggest supplier of electricity to increase rates while raking in huge profits.

Meralco will increase its generation charge by 32 centavos per kilowatt hour to P6.4549 per kWh this month, raising households’ electric bills:

“This increase in the highest electricity rates in Asia is simply unacceptable for workers and poor people. Meralco’s continuous extortion of consumers should stop,” said Roger Soluta, KMU secretary-general.

“It is revolting to see Meralco boosting its profits while workers and poor people suffer from stagnant wages and skyrocketting prices of basic goods and services,” he added.

KMU cited news reports from early this year showing Meralco increasing its profits in 2011 by almost 40 per cent to an all-time high of P13.2 billion, an increase which the company ascribed to higher sales from a record number of consumers.

“This madness should stop. Big capitalists should not be allowed to increase their profits non-stop while continuously increasing the amount which they charge their consumers,” Soluta said.

“Electricity is a very important public utility. The government should nationalize the power industry in order to protect the people from the extortion of big capitalists,” he added.

The labor center condemned Pres. Noynoy Aquino for allowing the owners of Meralco, some of his closest allies, to increase power rates.

“Pres. Aquino is colluding with the owners of Meralco – Manny Pangilinan, the Lopez family, and his uncle Danding Cojuangco. He is allowing them to increase their profits and further impoverish workers and the poor,” Soluta said.

“The government should junk the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 which allows capitalists to boost their profits by robbing workers and the poor of our hard-earned income,” he said.