AC councilors Alfie Bonifacio and Jay Sangil strain their eyes to see the numbers in the electric meter in a house in Barangay Pulung Maragul. Contributed photo
ANGELES CITY — The sudden huge spike in electric bills which resulted in numerous complaints from consumers has prompted the city council committees on public utilities and public works and engineering to conduct random inspections on the actual meter reading of complaining households.
Last week, the council’s public utilities and public works and engineering committees, chaired by councilors Alfie Bonifacio and Jesus “Jay” Sangil respectively, went to Barangay Pulung Maragul here for the meter reading inspection.
They were joined by councilors Raco Del Rosario and Joseph G. Ponce as well as representatives of the Angeles Electric Corp. (AEC) and barangay officials in looking into the households’ electric meters where many were found to be misplaced or inaccessible and cannot be serviced without actually going inside the compound or houses.
“Actually, we found out that many electric meters installed on old houses were misplaced (nakatabingi) and inaccessible,” said Bonifacio.
He pointed out that because of the quarantine lockdown, it was simply not possible to have access to the electric meters without going inside the households.
“The inspection was made so that it will be clear on how these are being serviced or read by AEC meter readers… (para po maging malinaw kung paano po na ri-reading yan),” he added.
Bonifacio said the joint committees will make a resolution so that the AEC will fix the electric meters for easy service access without cost to the consumers.
He explained that the electric meters will now be placed outside or be installed in such a way that they can easily be read by AEC meter readers without the consumers being bothered every time.
Sangil said this is the result of decisive action on the part of the of the city council to look into the plight of electric consumers whose electric bills shot up.
He said they invited the management of AEC who readily cooperated and addressed the issues of its consumers. He said according to the AEC, almost 80 percent of the problems have already been rectified.
Bonifacio said the AEC explained that the estimated bill is computed by getting the average monthly bill of consumers from January, February and March. But he asked how the AEC can have meter readings on households when their electric meters are inaccessible during the lockdowns.
“That is why we conducted an actual meter reading to find out for ourselves on how we can further resolve the issue,” he said.
Sangil said he will request and get an assurance from the AEC for “staggered payments” of electric bills of up to six months to make it easier for the consumers.
He also said the AEC will not cut electricity without advance notices or information.
“We will make sure that this will be resolved and we will have a committee report on Tuesday for the approval of the city council,” Bonifacio and Sangil said.
