When President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in his recent SONA that ‘hindi naman tama’ (simply not right) for regular Filipinos to pay for the electricity that is lost between the power plant and the home, he brought to light a problem that has been draining family budgets for more than twenty-five years.
His removal of the 12% value-added tax (VAT) from the system loss charge on electricity bills by from the Bureau of Internal Revenue is a welcome and long-overdue fix. However, it is also intentionally incomplete. The abolition of VAT addresses a symptom, because the cancer is the 25-year-old EPIRA law that permits private utilities to recoup their own inefficiencies from the very consumers, is still unaddressed and can only be addressed by Congress.
The power industry was divided into generation businesses, a transmission operator (NGCP), and distribution utilities (DUs), which are effectively delivery couriers, under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (EPIRA). An inventory shortfall happens when power is lost in transit, whether due to theft by unauthorized jumpers (non-technical loss) or the physical resistance of lines (technical loss). In response, EPIRA legally reclassified that shortage as a ‘government-mandated pass-through cost,’ which means that paying customers are charged for kilowatts that they never consumed.
This same reasoning is formalized for tax purposes in the BIR’s new circular: because it is a pass-through expense, it is no longer included in the gross sales of generators, NGCP, and DUs and is consequently exempt of output VAT. At a cost to government income of around ?10 billion annually, the outcome is a small but significant savings of about ?20 off the typical monthly home bill.
In comparison, our water utilities do not charge customers for their system losses. Concession agreements with the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), which were signed in 1997, provide a completely different framework for Manila Water and Maynilad. Instead of treating water delivery as an unbundled chain of buyers and sellers, these agreements treat it as a single, end-to-end service obligation. When a pipe bursts or water is stolen through unauthorized connections, the operator is fully responsible for the loss, which is known as Non-Revenue Water (NRW) and is financed by its own capital rather than being charged to the next-door neighbor. Since there is nothing to list, there is no ‘water system loss charge’ on your account; instead, the concessionaire bears the expense and is expected to make investments to repair the leaks that caused it.
There is a significant technical difference here. Contract design protects water consumers from operator failure. EPIRA law makes electric consumers pay for their operator failure. Both industries were privatized to draw in capital and enhance services; however, one framework penalizes the operator for losses because they cost the operator money, while the other framework eliminates this discipline because it is paid for by consumers.
This is the core of the public grievance, and it deserves to be stated clearly. The paying homes’ bills suffer if jumper connection siphons power off a line. Compare that to a water concessionaire, whose bottom line is directly impacted by each leaky pipe and whose ability to make a profit hinge on lowering NRW.
Even worse, customers may be billed twice for the same issue. The purpose of the system loss charge is to recoup electricity lost due to theft and outdated wiring. However, customers also pay a separate Distribution Charge that is specifically designed to cover the utility’s capital investments, which include the transformer upgrades and line replacements that would initially lower those losses.
Malacañang has fulfilled its legal obligations and thank you President Marcos Jr. But now only Congress can amend EPIRA to forbid passing these losses to us consumers, cap them more aggressively, or restructure Distribution utilities’ incentives so that reducing losses becomes their source of profit. The DOF and BIR do not have the authority to eliminate the system loss charge itself. The Energy Regulatory Commission’s own methodology for establishing system loss caps should be closely examined in conjunction with bills like the proposed System Loss Charges Abolition Act, which are still being debated or sleeping in the Senate.
Yes, Water utilities should not be used as a model for electricity distribution because the two industries have different physics, histories, and capital requirements. However, the idea can be used for example when the thing that causes a loss also must pay for it, that thing will find ways to lower the loss. Urgency disappears when the loss is instead transferred to a captive consumer without a substitute supply, like a hostage set-up. (next)
Parental neglect creates a generation of juvenile killers
The unprecedented wave of campus gun violence that tore through San Jose National High School, Ateneo de Zamboanga, and Banga National High School between June and September 2026 has shattered our collective thinking that we are all immune to the virus of school shootings. For decades, we watched foreign tragedies unfold on television, insulated by a cultural belief that close-knit family ties and tight school communities would shield our youth. Today, that armor is entirely gone, replaced by a grim reality: six young lives stolen, dozens wounded, and a nation left asking how children as young as 14 became mass shooters.
While we must scrutinize security lapses and digital algorithms, we can no longer ignore the uncomfortable truth staring back at us from the mirror. These tragedies represent a catastrophic failure of families and homes. A teenager does not become a lethally armed extremist overnight. The 14- and 15-year-old perpetrators did not stumble into dark internet cults like the ‘764’ network or radical mass-shooter idolization forums in a single afternoon. They were groomed, radicalized, and isolated over months, all while living under the roofs of guardians who failed to see the warning signs. Parents and guardians have abdicated their most sacred duty: presence.
In an era where digital devices double as surrogate parents, adults ignored the silent withdrawal of their children into echo chambers of violence and nihilism. Furthermore, the lethal weapons used in these massacres came from parents’ negligence. Careless firearm storage and casual accessibility of deadly weapons directly enabled these minors to execute their crimes.
Every single individual, young and old, whether physically inside the classroom or interacting in online spaces-must learn from this bloodshed. For the youth, the lesson is one of digital accountability and radical empathy. Peer-to-peer relationships can no longer bypass those drowning in isolation or targeted by online predators. Bullying, which plagues nearly half of our students, must be actively dismantled by the students themselves. For educators and administrators, online vigilance must match physical vigilance. The school’s duty of care does not end at the campus gates; it extends into the digital ecosystems where our students spend their formative hours.
Grief and public outcry mean nothing without legislative teeth. Congress must pass stringent, non-negotiable child safety laws immediately. Legislation that mandates severe criminal liability for gun owners who fail to secure firearms from minors. Laws to enforce transparency from social media platforms, compelling them to aggressively scrub grooming networks and violent extremist content targeting Filipino children. The Social Media Ban for Children Under 13 must be enacted asap. This includes complete prohibition of social media platform access for any child under 13. Strict curation and restricted interactive capabilities on short-form videos and chat functions must take effect on minors aged 13 to 18.