David Celestra Tan, MSK 21 February 2016 Meralco recently announced its rate will increase P0.42 per kwh which many consumers and apparently including the ERC and the DOE find inconsistent with the 55% drop in world fuel prices. Of the P0.42 per kwh increase this month, P0.25 or 60% is from generation charges, 0.08 or 19% is from higher transmission charges of NGCP, taxes of 0.05 (12%), and others of 0.04 per kwh (9%). Since fuel prices have remained low, the increase could have come only from fixed capacity payments. Meralco had further warned the public to expect more increases because of the coming hot summer months and the scheduled downtimes of more of its contracted power plants. This means Meralco will be paying for capacity fees even during the downtimes for maintenance that the generators are allowed under their power supply agreements. Since there is no output from these plants, the capacity payments will increase the average generation rate passed on to the consumers.