MANILA Electric Co. (Meralco) on Wednesday reported a consolidated core net income of P26.51 billion for the first half of 2026, up 3.8 percent from P25.54 billion a year earlier and attributed largely to higher pass-through generation and transmission charges from its distribution utility business.
Reported net income for the period stood at P26.30 billion, an increase of 11 percent from P23.64 billion while revenues rose 16 percent to P283.71 billion from P245.22 billion, supported by higher earnings from its power generation and retail electricity supply businesses.
Meralco said revenue from the distribution business grew to P36.37 billion from P35.57 billion despite slightly lower volumes sold due to a one-time reset cost refund implemented last year.
The distribution utility customer base was said to have expanded to 8.3 million while consolidated distribution energy sales stood at 26,967 gigawatt-hours (GWh), lower than last year’s 27,091 GWh.
Power generation revenues grew to P225.99 billion from P190.69 billion, largely because of higher fixed charges from the interim extension of a power purchase agreement and fuel cost recovery adjustments for four generation companies, among other factors.
The retail electricity business delivered 3,864 GWh in the first half, up 9 percent and said to have been driven by continuing customer acquisitions and synergies.
Capital spending for the period amounted to P38.99 billion, down from last year’s P47.49 billion and mostly used for new connections, asset renewals, and other projects, including the MTerra solar project.
Meanwhile, Chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan also said that the company would continue to support government programs and initiatives that would benefit Filipino consumers.
Commenting on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s call for the removal of system loss charges and their accompanying value-added tax from consumer electricity bills, Pangilinan said this was a complicated issue.
“In any operation that involves transmission from point A to point B, it involves some losses. That’s the way it is ... The longer the lines are, the more the losses will be. And it is not a question of inefficiency; it’s just the way it is. And there’s a cost to it. So, the real question is, who bears the cost?” he told reporters.
“The cost ... is too big for the industry to absorb all of it, so it’s not a legal discussion. It’s going to impact the entire power industry in this country ... So again, who is going to pay for that? In the industry, it’s going to cost tens of billions of pesos. We will not survive,” Pangilinan continued.
Meralco Senior Vice President Jose Ronald Valles said that since the proposed removal of system loss charges would require an amendment of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2021, it would first have to go through the process of seeking comments and inputs from all stakeholders.
“We don’t know what will come out in the final version of the amendment, so until we see that ... we cannot speculate nor determine how much will be the impact of that on the operations of Meralco,” he said.
Meralco shares on Wednesday dropped P9.50, or 1.69 percent, to close at P552.20 apiece amid a 0.78-percent gain for the benchmark Philippine Stock Market index.
