Why Meralco Bills Got So Expensive In April 2026

追加: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Yo, so this Morocco bill just came in.

[00:00:03]Let me tell you something. We got to talk about it cuz this bill right here, this April bill is absolutely outrageous.

[00:00:13]There's something going on here that we're going to talk about. And it's just not affecting just me. It affects absolutely everyone who lives in the Philippines. And it's absolutely crazy once we talk about it. So, let's go. All right. So, normally, you know, when we talk about electric bills and stuff like that, it's pretty consistent, you know, when we talk about the bills, uh, because we typically use the same energy. It may be a little bit different, you know, when it comes to uh the summer months or something of that nature, but specifically April.

[00:00:56]April, this bill ridiculously it's the highest bill I ever received. Um, so just to give you some context, generally speaking, my bill is around 9,500 pesos every single month. Now that could mean you know previous month is 9,300 month before that was 9,700 and sometimes in the se in the summer months it'll spike up to maybe 10,000 you know and if we do have uh family members over or even uh the nanny or maid sometimes when we have her over uh she stays here you know then yeah it'll obviously the rate of what we pay will go up for the month because we are um you know running a a second aircon uh in the other room. So completely understandable obviously of why the bill would be a little bit higher. So typically those whenever we have made nanny uh you know staying over uh we're looking at roughly about maybe 11,000 uh for the month. But this bill right here, this month's bill for April, astounded. Absolutely ridiculously crazy. So this month's bill, 12,684 pesos. It's the highest bill we've ever seen, we've ever gotten. Why?

[00:02:30]Why does my bill go from 9,500 now to 12,600?

[00:02:37]And nothing's really changed. And come to find out, this is not just me. This is literally everybody in the country.

[00:02:48]Now, I've been doing some research on Facebook with our groups of other renters and owners who actually live in the complex here, and their bills have all gone up. I mean, we're talking about people that were paying, let's say, 3,000 pesos a month as their normal bill for general now at 5,000. One told me their bill went from 5,000 to 8,000 pesos. Uh there was one lady I saw on X, she normally pays 700 pesos. Okay? She lives out in the province. uh she normally pays 700 pesos a month on her bill and she proves it. She she showed like the last six months of bills and they were ranging from 650 pesos to about 720 pesos every single month for the last six months. this bill for April. 7,000 pesos.

[00:03:50]7,000 pesos for one bill one month for somebody who normally pays anywhere from 600 to 700 pesos a month.

[00:04:04]Absolutely insane. So, what's going on here? Why is everybody's bill going higher uh specifically this month? Let's talk about it. So, doing some research here and couple reasons um of why the April increase has happened. So, number one, Morocco, which is the electric company here, um raised their rates for April. That's one thing, but that that doesn't really explain the entire uh you know, doesn't explain the entire thing here.

[00:04:40]So, I'm going to pull up both bills.

[00:04:43]Marches and Aprils and uh we're gonna compare them side by side. So, here's the breakdown of the uh the different bills. What's gone up, honestly, are all the little fees that they charge you. That's that's one thing that I've noticed right away is all of the little fees that they charge you are way more. So for example um the bill's broken down into like generation transmission system loss distribution um government taxes universal charges uh fit all uh GA all and other charges right so the difference right here first and foremost uh as as I told you there Morocco is raised their rates in general for starting in April. Right now, the the rate increase honestly is not astronomical, right? It's nothing crazy.

[00:05:46]Um they went from 13.8 pesos to 14.3.

[00:05:51]So, it's nothing like crazy, you know?

[00:05:54]Um but the rates did go up. Now something else that went up as well um is the generation charge. So to generate the electricity has gone up. Now on my bill specifically that's gone up by 1,600 pesos. 1,600 pesos. Uh that's gone up by the transmission transmission charge. uh that's gone up by 400 pesos.

[00:06:28]Uh the system loss system loss for my bill actually has gone down by 200 pesos. Distribution uh that's gone up by 300 pesos. Um, government taxes, government taxes has gone up by about 350 pesos from past bill to previous bill or from previous bill to the new bill. Uh, universal uh charges, those have gone up by about 50 pesos. The fit all renewable, whatever that is, um, that's gone up by about 35 pesos.

[00:07:08]the GA all renewable. Um, that's gone up by about five pesos. And then I see now another charge of Lifeline, whatever that is. That's 8 pesos. That wasn't on my previous bill.

[00:07:26]Um, so all of that is why my bill is over 2,800. basically 3,000 pesos more than what it normally is. Now, looking at my actual like consumption um for it's funny because for April and March or for April of last year and April of this year, it's literally identical to the consumption between 2025 and 20 2026 of April. Same amount.

[00:08:04]um March from 20 I actually have had higher consumption in March of 2025 than I had in March of 2026.

[00:08:14]So to be honest with you, if you look at the graph here, my consumption this year for 2026 has actually been lower since the beginning of the year compared to last year. And I'm still paying more money.

[00:08:31]still paying more money even though I'm using less uh consumption from last year. So obviously uh bills have gone up. I'm sure as you can imagine uh everything happening in the Middle East uh is I would assume a huge contributing factor um to all of the bills because it's not just electricity. Uh uh the gas uh is you know natural gas and all that stuff is is gone up in price. So everything has gone up in price. Um, if you know me, what I do for a living, I'm I I I'm a day trader. So I I look at uh commodities like all day, every single day. So natural gas, copper, uh silver, gold, uh oil, you know, things of that nature. Uh and you know, natural gas, the spot price of actual natural gas have been has been going down uh ever since the beginning of the year actually. Um, it was it's down uh from 580 to now about 266. So, I don't know what's going on there, but uh when it comes to oil, obviously a lot a lot of, you know, yo-yoing back and forth, a lot of it obviously has to do with anytime that Trump says anything about, you know, oil or or the war or ceasefire, not ceasefire, you know, all of that obviously moves in dramatic ways uh the price of oil. Um, so right now it's sitting at about $100 a barrel uh for oil. Obviously, we haven't hit the top yet of like back uh at the beginning of the war, which was like in March um when we hit like $120 per barrel. Uh so we have gone down some. We've we've actually made a huge move back down again. When we had the beginning of the ceasefire, um that was back in like April 17th or so. It went all the way down to $79 a barrel, but has obviously crept back up again. And so we're currently sitting right around somewhere around $100 to $101 a barrel uh as of the making of this particular video. Um so obviously, you know, me personally, I can tell you, you know, I pray every single day and hope that um we can just get a resolution to all this stuff going on.

[00:10:52]Um, and you know, we can kind of go back to to having normal prices because here's an important fact, right? Is it's one thing for me to, you know, to pay an extra, you know, 3,000 uh a month for uh for electric, right? To me, it may not be catastrophic, right? But there are a lot a lot a lot of Filipinos here that cannot afford that big of a price uh difference, you know, for for us uh you know, expats, foreigners that have the ability to, you know, to not sweat out, you know, over 3,000, you know, peso hike or whatever. There are real people, real families uh that are being really really affected by these uh crazy uh you know hikes of of uh electricity. So hopefully uh you know uh this can get resolved and uh you know prices can come back down because yeah it's honestly to some to some people that are living here um it's become very obviously very unaffordable um you know to be able to just live and and you know pay electricity and be able to survive essentially. So, uh, I hope and pray that, uh, you know, everyone is able to, I don't know, man, just get back to normal, honestly. And, you know, and you figure, imagine if you're like a um a a Grab driver, uh, you know, in the States, if you're like an Uber driver, imagine, you know, you're paying crazy amounts of, uh, gas prices right now. What is it, like 450 uh, a gallon right now for gas prices over here?

[00:12:47]That's it's the equivalent of like seven to eight dollar a gallon for gas. So imagine all the grab drivers, you know, um what they have to do, all the tricycle drivers, all the jeepy drivers, uh that are, you know, that are having to pay. I've I've been watching a couple a couple videos uh from different um YouTubers who have uh gone out to different gas stations and stuff and and uh actually like helped you know fill up the the gas tanks of tricycle riders uh grab drivers uh jeep knees and stuff like that which is amazing to see. Um, our church actually was involved in in something like that uh last week and we helped out 49 drivers uh tricycle drivers uh and filling up their their gas tanks. So very uh very cool to have that happen as well. But, uh, honestly, at the end of the day, I really hope that whatever's causing, you know, this Middle East thing to to happen, I we we really pray for for a resolution uh sooner rather than later.

[00:14:01]So hopefully you know things can come back down to normal and uh you know everyone can get back to you know just normal pricing because obviously you know these kind of prices just remain very unsustainable uh for the future. So anyway guys uh yeah electric bills uh have gone up. Very interested to see uh what next month brings. Hopefully, I really hope it doesn't go up past uh 12, you know, 600 or whatever because if if my bill is going up, I mean, other people's bills are going up and, you know, who knows like, you know, what happens at that point. But anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the video. Do me a favor, uh, click like, share, subscribe, and uh, God bless you. We will see you in the next one. Peace.