CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE: If Malacanang and the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) think harassed consumers have forgotten about the despised Purchased Power Adjustment (PPA), they are mistaken.

The PPA is still there making life miserable for consumers, except that it has been broken down in our electric bills and renamed beyond recognition. This is deceit.

At the height of the consumer protests last year over PPA and the padding of electric bills with ungenerated/unused power, two things happened:

1. President Arroyo promised to review/revise PPA contracts of independent power producers (IPPs) and to lower and later eliminate PPA charges.
2. Meralco “unbundled” the various charges in its billings. It broke down the old bill consisting of only three items (basic energy charge, currency adjustment and PPA costs) into a long list of 13 items.

With all that juggling, did the cost of electricity go down substantially? No, it did not. This is deceit.

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TOKEN REDUCTION: As regards the promise of President Arroyo to lower charges, the “unbundled” bill now being sent to customers shows an item called “Power Act Redn” which is a measly reduction of 30 centavos per kilowatt-hour.

Thirty centavos is all that Malacanang can work out? Worse, there is no indication from the Palace that more substantial reductions are in the offing soon.

Meanwhile, lucky independent power producers (IPPs) continue to collect payments for electricity that consumers never actually used, sometimes even for power that is not even generated.

After kunwari eliminating PPA by the hocus-pocus of renaming it, that burden is still there hidden under “generation charge,” “transmission charge” and “system loss charge” in the new bill.

Taken together, these charges account for about half of the total electric bill in the same way that PPA did in the past.

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COSTLY SERVICE: There is a curious item in the bill called “Supply Charge.” Meralco supervisor Dennis Lucas said this is the cost of dispensing customer services, including billing and attending to complaints.

Supply Charge is now a variable amount equivalent to 52.71 centavos multiplied by the kwh-consumption for the month. The collection goes to Meralco.

But why should the charge be a function of the consumption? Whether a household uses 200 kwh or 500 kwh a month, the cost of reading the meter and sending the bill should be the same.

Come to think of it, if a consumer does not complain within one month, does Meralco give him a corresponding reduction in his “Supply Charge” for good behavior?

Aside from that, there is a separate item called “Metering Charge,” which strikes us as redundant since there is already the “Supply Charge” mentioned above. The metering charge is also a function of the consumption, which we think is also unfair.

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WE PAY FOR THEFT: Another big item in the bill is a “System Loss Charge” that Lucas said covers technical and non-technical losses. The collection does not go to Meralco, but to its power suppliers (IPPs).

Technical loss is the dissipation of electricity when it travels over the distribution wires and cables, while non-technical loss occurs when somebody illegally taps the line and steals electricity.

While we understand the refunding of technical losses (although expertise and use of quality materials can reduce it), we object to our having to pay for electricity that is stolen under the noses of Meralco and the National Power Corp.

Power theft is the system’s problem, not ours. Why should we pay for the inefficiency or inability of the IPPs, Napocor and Meralco to safeguard the merchandise?

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TAX PASSED ON: There is also in the bill an odd item called “Franchise Tax” pertaining to such tax paid to the national and the local governments.

Of course, a public utility has to pay franchise taxes, but why should that expense be passed on to consumers? In effect, it is the consumers, not Meralco, who pay for the tax liability of the franchise-holder.

Examine your electric bill for the items that we have noted. If you have questions, as we have, call the Meralco hotline 16-211. Or join consumers demanding answers to questions on PPA and other power-related issues.

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ACM SHOWDOWN: We’ve been reliably informed that some big politicians are looking for hackers who can break into the supposedly secure programs running the computers and automated counting machines for the 2004 elections.

This is disturbing, considering reports from reputable information technology experts that the computers ordered by the Commission on Elections have communication ports through which data and signals can be passed in and out.

The Comelec and the supplier Mega Pacific denied the reported vulnerability of their equipment, but some IT experts are not convinced.

We suggest that a Showdown be scheduled soonest to determine who is right. Let IT volunteers pick sample units from the 1,500 ACMs delivered and demonstrate how they can send data to the machines from outside.

If they can do it, then the ACMs that have been represented as secure are vulnerable — and must be rejected outright, and payments (as well as commissions, if any) refunded.

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ACCURACY DISPUTED: Reader Rudy Tan, claiming to have developed software for validating industrial counting machines, says that the 100-percent accuracy claim of Mega Pacific for its ACMs is a fallacy. He explains:

“Accuracy is defined as the ‘closeness of agreement between a test result and the true value’ (ISO Vocabulary in Meteorology). Unfortunately, only God knows the ‘true value’ of any test result. In the case of ACMs, the appropriate performance characteristic should be reported in terms of ‘error rate.’

“The estimation of error rate is a statistical and not an engineering problem. It is a function of sample size. Thus, it is possible that the error rate may be zero up to a sample size of 1,000 ballots but will become significant when the sample size reaches 500,000 ballots due to machine fatigue.

“So, a claim of 100-percent accuracy is meaningless without specifying the sample size and test conditions. There are risks involved in the estimation of error rate.

“An important requirement for a valid estimation of error rate is equipment qualification. The ACMs should have undergone design qualification before delivery. During delivery the ACMs should undergo installation, operational, and performance qualification (IQPQ). After use, the ACMs should undergo maintenance qualification.

“Since there are many sources of uncertainty, an appropriate experimental design should be used in the qualification and estimation of the error rate of the ACMs. An estimate of error rate based on an assumption of ideal situation like ‘if the voter will do his part in accomplishing the ballots properly’ would not be useful for decision-making. The experimental design should represent various conditions in the field.”