Suggestion Best Posts in Thread: Paying your electric bill

As far as I can make out ( and Stand to be Corrected) you may only pay a current account on line or outreaches, if there are discrepancies/arrears, they will not accept the payment. Maybe this is good as it is a constant reminder to be on time with payments or sort the account out or it will be a Queuing job.

JP

 

Although I believe in capitalism, I do feel there are a few areas monopolies could benefit the citizens if corruption is kept at bay. Obviously the lack of corruption control, rules out monopolies here in the Philippines. Recently the Electrical supply company for Manila/luzon was named as the highest tax payer (reading making the most profit) while also charging the highest rates in Asia. This is big business in the unregulated Filipino marketplace controlled by political clans. Obviously there is little regulation going on here. The benefits generally have little to do with honest big business but every thing to do with economies of scale and start up costs in an industry. I am saying because of economies of scale there are a few industries where the economy of scale benefit the customers, very few. The reason monopolies are allowed in the US is based on the "concept" that the customers get the best prices because of the economy of the scale of the company and everyone get served even if you as a customer do not economically benefit the company.. If you live in the middle of now where in the US, you still get an electrical line to your house. If the power companies only provided power to the areas they could make a profit, many areas would never have power supplied to them as the fixed cost of installing miles of electrical lines would put a financial burden on the company for the fees collected on one sole customer. The same applies for the fixed start up costs for land line phones systems. Many third world countries haveslowed the installation million miles of wire by jumping to the next step of radio control phones, cell phones, and stopping the expansion of hard line systems. Monopolies are granted and licensed and regulated in the US. However it is not perfect even in the US, as Southern California Edison, the main electrical supply company in my area, is allowed to make a profit percentage based on the costs of operations. So the higher the costs, the more dollar profit per share, consequently there is not a lot of incentive to totally control costs and regulation. The system falls short as the companies come up with ways of allowing their cost to creep up. There is no perfect system as someone will always come up with a new way to "skin the cat" in the financial world (sorry Imp). I believe monopolies should only be used in the utility industries with high start up costs, so the companies are guaranteed a return on their investments and the general public gets the service they need. If all segments of the economy were allowed to be run by monopolies then the financial system would be stressed.... you know like saying all the gasoline companies were just one company, and ever gas station charged the same price... which is close but not exactly what is happening now in most of the world, or like Obamacare where the government is almost the sole provider of the new medical insurance system and you are penalized (taxed) if you do not use the Obamacare systems. These are false monopolies. I do believe in capitalism.... pure capitalism... hummm... actually pure capitalism with no caring about the customer is probably more practiced in the Philippines than in the US, which is why many of us feel we are getting screwed all the time. We can count our blessing that the Catholic Church promotes a high birthrate to keep the labor supply high and labor costs down here (supply and demand economic concept), because the lower labor costs substantially contributes to keeping the overall costs down in the Philippines. Manufacturing costs (most manufactured things are imported) are not beneficial to the Philippines, and the only reason some manufactured things here are cheaper is that China dumps second level quality products on the Philippines' marketplace.
(For reference I do believe in birth control as opposed to the non-responsible parenting that seem to be encouraged by the local Catholic Institutions but not particularly the Pope after his visit... the local Catholic institutions quickly revised the Pope's words, as he flew out of Manila after his last visit because of his "slip of his tongue" regarding "breeding like rabbits" and talking about responsible parenting - long live the concept of separation of Church and State .)

 

If standing in long lines in Dumaguete to pay your electric bill is not your thing then try the Bacong payment center. There is usually a much shorter line, sometimes even walk up to the window type line. They are located in the "Metro Center" area by the public market, just ask anyone who sells anything around the area.
I would post their hours, but I am not sure they follow them. They open in the morning, and promptly close for lunch when they are hungry. They are suppose to stay open till 3 PM, but anytime past 2 is taking a risk on your part. Next time I go I will post their " Posted hours" but do not get the posted hours confused with the hours of operation. Do not arrive with same expectations of operating hours as you have to getting a continuous feed of electricity from a electrical company with a monopoly of supply in the Philippines, as you may be disappointed.