ONCE upon a time, as far as memory permits, we had been paying our electric bills to that old venerable electric company, and for the duration of its franchise billions of pesos have been earned.
Those were the glory days. Because there was no other electric entity that provides us what we need to dampen the hot, humid nights.
Perhaps it was this reality that it was a monopoly and no one can do anything about it…that consumers were shabbily treated and disregarded. The quality of service deteriorated while tons of money continued its unabated flow.
Aside from the expiry of its franchise and unheeded calls for improvement, impetus was provided by the consumers themselves.
There are only two kinds of consumers:
1) those who pay their electric bills; and
2) those who do not…devising “jumpers” and whatever contraption to steal electricity. It’s nice to sleep in an air-conditioned room with soft music playing till dawn….without paying for it.
This rampant theft of electricity was supposed to be a problem for the electric company…to identify, cut off and weed out illegal connections…to protect paying clients. But no. Nothing significant was done in this direction.
It can be gleaned that the electric company cared not about illegal connections…it just summed up the electric consumption of an area and divided the total amount among its paying customers. This is fondly referred to as the distribution cost; that is, paying customers pay for the electric consumption of their friendly neighbor who does not pay.
It is illegal, unfair, unjust and hard on the pocket. Strangely, there seemed to be no record of cases of theft of electricity filed in court…but it is rife, that most offenders are understandably squatters; even barangay officials and other servants of the people. So, I guess the defunct electric company was just acting in self-defense.
There is a new player on the block now. This current electric power provider was able to wrangle the franchise and promised better service. And there are pleasing signs that the foregoing litany has become a thing of the past.
For ages I have been paying under the old society…a monthly bill always exceeding P10,000; P14,000; P16,000; etc. and made a promise to myself, if I am billed less than P10,000 I will buy and fire rockets…pwitis!
Recently, I received the shock of my electric life; I was billed P6,000! And as I am a man of my word, I bought at Villa 20 rockets, pwitis, palupok whatever, that thing that flies up the air and explodes with a bang, and launched it…to celebrate an electric shock…I mean, miracle!
I do not know anyone from the current electric power provider, neither have I done anything for it. What I only know is that my monthly electric bill has drastically gone down. Others attest to a lowered electric bill.
As long as the vigorous campaign against illegal connections is pressed, the interests of paying clients are protected. And for that we are grateful. Please continue to lower my electric bills./PN
