Meralco supports initiatives of the government to provide relief to consumers and ensure that they benefit from any approved refund as quickly and transparently as possible.
As such, we will comply with the most recent directive of the ERC to implement the refund of P9.5 billion over a six-month period, equivalent to an average rate of P0.34 per kWh, with residential customers getting a refund of about P0.59 per kWh.
To recall, it was Meralco that filed two separate applications for refund in 2025 and early 2026, covering the period from January 2025 to June 2025 and July 2025 to December 2025, respectively. This follows the previous applications of Meralco covering the period from July 2015 to June 2022, resulting in a total of P40.5B refund that was already implemented by Meralco from March 2021 to May 2023, and for the period covering July 2022 to December 2024, resulting to an on-going refund of P20B starting April 2025.
he refund pertains to the difference between Meralco’s Actual Weighted Average Tariff (AWAT) and its approved distribution tariff during those periods. The AWAT of Meralco was higher than the approved tariff at those times because of much higher consumption from residential customers compared to other customer classes, which drove the Meralco’s AWAT to increase. This true-up mechanism is part of ERC-approved regulatory process that aims to ensure that a Distribution Utility (DU) will refund any excess tariff it may have unintentionally collected as a result of the True Up. This mechanism is applied uniformly across all private DUs, and, depending on each DU’s sales mix for a paticular period, it can result in either a refund or additional collection. In the case of Meralco, it filed the two applications for refund and not for additional collection, in strict compliance with the directive of the ERC. The recent Decision of ERC ordering a refund of P9.5B, more or less, approved these two applications of Meralco.
Other DUs have similar applications pending before the ERC.
As with previous refunds, the approved adjustment will appear in a separate line item in customers’ electricity bills, allowing consumers to clearly see the amount being returned to them.
According to Atty. Jose Ronald V. Valles, SVP and Head of Regulatory Management of Meralco
