MANILA, Philippines — Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco has refiled a bill abolishing systems loss charges on consumers’ electricity bills, a response to the call made by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Marcos last Monday said consumers should no longer bear systems loss charges in their monthly electricity bills, a proposal aimed at reducing the country’s high power rates.
Tiangco refiled the proposed System Loss Charges Abolition Act of 2026, or House Bill 10273, on July 28, noting that he first introduced a similar measure in 2016.
Under the bill, all distribution utilities, including private distribution utilities and electric cooperatives, will be prohibited from passing on, recovering, or collecting system loss charges from consumers regardless of their cause or classification. The measure also exempts system loss charges from the Value-Added Tax (VAT).
“In 2016, this did not move forward. Now, the President himself clearly acknowledges that the practice of passing on systems loss costs to consumers must stop,” Tiangco said in Filipino.
“I am hopeful that in this Congress, we will have the sufficient political will to enact this reform into law,” he added.
Unlike existing rules that still allow electric utilities to recover a portion of their system losses from consumers, Tiangco's newly refiled bill takes a more decisive approach by prohibiting all distribution utilities—whether private distribution utilities or electric cooperatives—from passing on, recovering, collecting, or charging consumers for any system losses, regardless of their cause or classification.
The measure also provides that system loss charges shall not be subject to Value-Added Tax (VAT), further protecting consumers from additional charges related to system losses.
