ERC sets rules on collecting bill deposit

MANILA — The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has set the rules that electricity distributors must follow when collecting the bill deposit.

A bill deposit is an amount collected from all consumers nationwide that covers or guarantees any unpaid electricity consumed after the due date.

In an advisory, the ERC said power distributors that intend to reimpose the bill deposit must send a written notice to the affected customers explaining the basis for the reimposition, the computation of the amount reimposed, and the consumers’ option to pay it in three equal monthly installments.

The reimposed bill deposit must be paid in three equal monthly installments, unless the customer opts to pay it in full or the power distributor allows a longer payment period.

Earlier this week, Meralco postponed to next year the collection of the reimposed bill deposit of millions of its consumers.

This came after a number of consumers posted their bloated bills online when the bill deposit was lumped into the “other charges” part of the October 2026 billing.

According to some consumers, their bills nearly doubled, or thousands of pesos were added due to “other charges,” which turned out to be an updated bill deposit.

Meralco said around 20,000 of its more than 8 million customers were asked to update their bill deposit after failing to pay their bills on time.