Meralco line men conduct an anti-urban blight and dangling wire clearing operations to remove so-called 'spaghetti wires' targeting excess, idle, and unauthorized wires to improve public safety and enhance urban aesthetics, in Pasay City on January 19, 2026.
Rappler
System loss, which accounts for about 5% of a Meralco bill, includes electricity lost to illegal connections and metering errors. The key question legislators need to answer is who will absorb the cost instead.
MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants Congress to stop electricity distributors from making consumers pay for system losses, arguing in his fifth State of the Nation Address that households should not be charged for electricity that never reaches them.
“Hindi naman kasalanan ng consumer kung bakit nagkaroon ng system loss (System loss is not the fault of consumers),” Marcos said to roaring applause, calling for an “immediate amendment” to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) that would prohibit system loss charges and the value-added tax (VAT) imposed on them.
