P800K Visayan Electric bill settled

A Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) lineman repairs a transformer on A.S. Fortuna, Mandaue City in this file photo taken in May 2014.          | CDN FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The erroneous Visayan Electric bill that reached P877,000 for a single residential household has been resolved.

Jreal Mary Mae Punay-Sarmiento, a member of the Punay family, said Visayan Electric has reached out to them regarding the bill with the corrected figures.

Punay-Sarmiento said their actual bill was only P12,000, which was at least two times their average monthly cost.

It was later reduced to P7,800 after further scrutiny.

Visayan Electric already said in previous statements that consumers should expect an increase in the February bill due to bill lumping and possible increased consumption.

The Punay household’s P877,000 bill was due to an error in encoding after their meter was replaced after sustaining damages from Typhoon Odette.

The utility kept its promise in reaching out to the household and corrected their bill.

“One of the VECO representatives already called my mom and apologized for what had happened. As promised, they already sent us the corrected bill. Case closed na,” said Punay-Sarmiento.

The family also thanked the netizens for bringing their massive concerns to light by making the post viral.

If the bill was not corrected, she said her family would not have had the ability to pay such a massive bill.

Punay-Sarmiento encouraged other consumers to carefully check their bills and complain if necessary.

“Based sa experience namo, akong ma advice sa uban consumers, if hesitant and naa gyod sila doubt sa ilang bill kay better na i-raise gyod ila concern sa VECO. Pwede sila mo call sa hotline or mag leave og message sa ila FB page. Para ma sabtan ilang bill and ma adjust rapod og kailangan.”

“Ni promise man pud sila (taga VECO) nga mo assist gyod sa mga concern sa ilang consumers,” she added.

Visayan Electric said that while consumers should expect an increase in the February bill, an increase of more than five times is already considered outrageous.

They do not discount the possibility that the incident may have happened to other consumers, although they assured it is not rampant.

Visayan Electric is now at 98.88 percent restoration for its franchise area.

Around 2,000 consumers are left to be reenergized mostly in Naga City and San Fernando town.   /rcg

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