Letter of Instruction No. 15 (Marcos)

September 29, 1972

LETTER OF INSTRUCTION No. 15

To: The Secretary Department of Public Works and Communications

In accordance with the recommendations submitted by the Presidential Economic Staff (PES) and the Board of Investments (BOI), the provisional rate increase granted by the Public Service Commission on May 29, 1972 to Meralco will be reduced from approximately 36.5% to 20.9%.

You will immediately take steps to implement such reduction, which may not be implemented across the board since the residential consumers with monthly consumption of 90 kilowatt-hours or less, and other groups, were not affected by the provisional rate increase.

You will ask Meralco to submit within a period of 24 hours a revised rate schedule which will be presented to me for approval. Upon the organization of the Board of Power and Waterworks, the Board shall conduct public hearings for the final determination of the rates to be allowed to Meralco.

It will be noted that the Public Service Commission did not make even a preliminary determination of the amount of provisional increase that might be warranted. Instead, the PSC ordered the full amount of increase petitioned by Meralco, and provided in its May 29 Order that "if after the hearing on the merits it is found that the applicant is not entitled to the increased rates as proposed by it, or is entitled to rates lower than proposed, all sums of money collected by reason of the provisional authority herein granted, shall be refunded to the customers or credited to their respective accounts.

This order of the Public Service Commission is hereby amended accordingly.

Rh