Many consumers erupted in fury at Meralco after it announced a rate hike of ₱0.53/kWh for April. Many were already shocked by the sudden surge in their March bills, which doubled, and in some cases tripled, their usual payments. Meralco raised its rates in succession in February (+₱0.2226) and March (+₱0.6427), and raised them again this April (+₱0.5335). The company’s rate now stands at ₱14.3496/kWh, up from ₱12.9508/kWh in January. An additional ₱279.76 has been added from January to April, pushing the bill to ₱2869.92 for a family consuming 200 kWh per month.

Meralco blames the increase on higher generation charges supposedly caused by the peso’s depreciation against the dollar. It warned that the calculation does not yet include price hikes of oil, one of the fuels power plants use. This will prompt the company to further raise rates in the future.

But according to Ibon Foundation, more than the weakening peso and rising oil prices is the state’s failure to restrain Meralco and other power companies to arbitrarily raise rates—especially during a severe crisis. It criticized the 2001 neoliberal Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) which removed state regulation over the energy industry. This law allowed companies like Meralco to arbitrarily raise rates and pass all added costs to consumers to protect their profits.

Like oil companies that amass wealth amid the oil and economic crisis, the power industry is dominated by a few large firms also accumulate enormous profits. Only 5–7 Filipino billionaires own 18 of the 20 largest electricity generation companies (gencos). One of these gencos is Meralco PowerGen (MGEN), owned by the same company that operates Meralco.