Senior or lifeline discount?

Egay Uy .

WHEN an electricity end-user who normally consumes only 100 kilowatthours or lower, reaches the age of sixty, he becomes interested in the possibility of availing also of the senior citizen’s discount as granted under RA 9994, aside from the Lifeline Rate Discount granted by his electric distribution utility.

Under Section 4(c) of RA 9994, a senior citizen is granted a “minimum of five percent (5%) discount relative to the monthly utilization of …  electricity supplied by the” electric utility.  This discount is also granted to senior citizens who consume not more than 30 cubic meters of water every month from the local water district. Of course, the service connection must be registered in the name of the senior citizen who resides in the premises.

In the case of electric bill discount, the ERC, in ERC Case No. 2001-892, approved the application of Cepalco in granting electric bill lifeline rate discount to households of senior citizens that consume not more than 100 kilowatthours per month.  The ERC however graduated the discount for various levels of consumption.

As approved, those who consume 100 kwh get a discount of 20 percent while those who consume up to 20 kwh get a 50 percent discount.  Consumptions in between are granted various levels of discounts.  According to the ERC the discounts shall be applied to the residential charges covering generation, transmission, distribution, supply, metering, and systems loss – the total billed amount for the month’s energy consumption.

A friend who just turned sixty called to suggest that the matter be looked into because according to the distribution utility when he asked, only one discount may be availed of by those who consume not more than 100 kwh per month – either the senior or the lifeline discount. He said the law could be referring to consumptions over 100 kwh to be entitled to the senior citizen’s discount of five percent.

He has a point there. If seniors are also granted the lifeline rate discount, then why bother availing of the senior discount when the former is much greater than the latter?  Under RA 9994, the senior discount for consuming 100 kwh is only five percent while it is 20 percent under the lifeline rate discount.

While to senior citizens the default choice would be the lifeline rate, the subsidizing end-users, those who consume more than 100 kwh end up paying for the discounts. It is the subsidizing end-users who are actually granting the discount, not the electric utility, not the government, not anybody else, but us, non-lifeline consumers.

It is therefore wrong to say that electric distribution utilities are granting Lifeline Rate Discounts to consumers who are senior citizens. Under that 2001 case, the amount of lifeline subsidy that we paid was more than five centavos per kilowatthour.