Republic Act No. 7832
AN
ACT PENALIZING THE PILFERAGE OF ELECTRICITY AND THEFT OF POWER TRANSMISSION
LINES/MATERIALS, RATIONALIZING SYSTEM LOSSES BY PHASING OUT PILFERAGE LOSSES AS
A COMPONENT THEREOF, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
SECTION 1. Short Title. – This Act shall be referred to as
the “Anti-electricity and Electric Transmission Lines/Materials Pilferage
Act of 1994.”
SEC. 2. Illegal Use of
Electricity. – It is hereby
declared unlawful for any person, whether natural or juridical, public or
private, to:
(a) Tap, make or cause to be made any connection with
overhead lines, service drops, or other electric service wires, without
previous authority or consent of the private electric utility or rural electric
cooperative concerned;
(b) Tap, make or cause to be made any connection to the
existing electric service facilities of any duly registered consumer without
the latter’s or the electric utility’s consent or authority;
(c) Tamper, install or use a tampered electrical meter,
jumper, current reversing transformer, shorting or shunting wire, loop
connection or any other device which interferes with the proper or accurate
registry or metering of electric current or otherwise result in its diversion
whereby electricity is stolen or wasted;
(d) Damage or destroy an electric meter, equipment, wire or
conduit or allow any of them to be so damaged or destroyed as to interfere with
the proper or accurate metering of electric current; and
(e) Knowingly use or receive the direct benefit of electric
service through any of the acts mentioned in subsections (a), (b), (c), and (d)
above.
SEC. 3. Theft of Electric
Power Transmission Lines and Materials. –
(a) It is hereby declared unlawful for any person to:
(1) Cut, saw, slice, separate, slit, severe, smelt, or remove
any power transmission line/material or meter from any tower, pole, any other
installation or place of installation or any other place or site where it may
be rightfully or lawfully stored, deposited, kept, stocked, inventoried,
situated or located, without the consent of the owner, whether or not the act
is done for profit or gain;
(2) Take, carry away or remove or transfer, with or without
the use of a motor vehicle or other means of conveyance, any electric power
transmission line/material or meter from a tower, pole, any other installation or
place of installation, or any place or site where it may be rightfully or
lawfully stored, deposited, kept, stocked, inventoried, situated or located,
without the consent of the owner, whether or not the act is done for profit or
gain;
(3) Store, possess or otherwise keep in his premises, custody
or control, any electric power transmission line/material or meter without the
consent of the owner, whether or not the act is done for profit or gain; and
(4) Load, carry, ship or move from one place to another,
whether by land, air or sea, any electrical power transmission line/material,
whether or not the act is done for profit or gain, without first securing a
clearance/permit for the said purpose from its owner or the
National Power Corporation (NPC) or its
regional office concerned, as the case may be.
(b) For purposes of this section, “electrical power
transmission line/material” refers to electric power transmission steel
towers, woodpoles, cables, wires, insulators, line hardwares, electrical
conductors and other related items with a minimum voltage of sixty-nine
kilovolts (69 kv), such as the following:
(1) Steel transmission line towers made of galvanized steel angular
members and plates or creosoted and/or tannelized woodpoles/concrete poles and
designed to carry and support the conductors;
(2) Aluminum conductor steel reinforced (ACSR) in excess of
100 MCM;
(3) Overhead ground wires made of 7 strands of galvanized
steel wires, 3.08 millimeters in diameter and designed to protect the
electrical conductors from lightning strikes;
(4) Insulators made of porcelain or glass shell and designed
to insulate the electrical conductors from steel towers or woodpoles; or
(5) Various transmission line hardwares and materials made of
aluminum alloy or malleable steel and designed to interconnect the towers,
conductors, ground wires, and insulators mentioned in subparagraphs (1), (2),
(3), and (4) above for the safe and reliable operation of the transmission
lines.
SEC. 4. Prima Facie
Evidence. – (a) The presence
of any of the following circumstances shall constitute prima facie
evidence of illegal use of electricity, as defined in this Act, by the person
benefited thereby, and shall be the basis for:
(1) the immediate disconnection by the electric utility to such person
after due notice, (2) the holding of a preliminary investigation by the prosecutor
and subsequent filing in court of the pertinent information, and (3) the
lifting of any temporary restraining order or injunction which may have been
issued against a private electric utility or rural electric cooperative:
(i) The presence of a bored hole on the glass cover of the
electric meter, or at the back or any other part of said meter;
(ii) The presence inside the electric meter of salt, sugar
and other elements that could result in the inaccurate registration of the meter’s
internal parts to prevent its accurate registration of consumption of
electricity;
(iii) The existence of any wiring connection which affects
the normal operation or registration of the electric meter;
(iv) The presence of a tampered, broken, or fake seal on the
meter, or mutilated, altered, or tampered meter recording chart or graph, or
computerized chart, graph or log;
(v) The presence in any part of the building or its premises
which is subject to the control of the consumer or on the electric meter, of a
current reversing transformer, jumper, shorting and/or shunting wire, and/or
loop connection or any other similar device;
(vi) The mutilation, alteration, reconnection, disconnection,
bypassing or tampering of instruments, transformers, and accessories;
(vii) The destruction of, or attempt to destroy, any integral
accessory of the metering device box which encases an electric meter, or its
metering accessories; and
(viii) The acceptance of money and/or other valuable
consideration by any officer or employee of the electric utility concerned or
the making of such an offer to any such officer or employee for not reporting
the presence of any of the circumstances enumerated in subparagraphs (i), (ii),
(iii), (iv), (v), (vi), or (vii) hereof:
Provided, however, That the discovery of any of the foregoing
circumstances, in order to constitute prima facie evidence, must be
personally witnessed and attested to by an officer of the law or a duly
authorized representative of the
Energy
Regulatory Board (ERB).
(b) The possession, control, or custody of electric power
transmission line/material by any person, natural or juridical, not engaged in
the transformation, transmission or distribution of electric power, or in the
manufacture of such electric power transmission line/material shall be prima
facie evidence that such line/material is the fruit of the offense defined
in Section 3 hereof and therefore such line/material may be confiscated from
the person in possession, control or custody thereof.
SEC. 5. Incentives. – An incentive scheme by way of a
monetary reward in the amount of Five thousand pesos (P 5,000) shall be given
to any person who shall report to the
NPC
or police authorities any act which may constitute a violation of Section 3
hereof. The
Department of Energy (DOE), in consultation with
the
NPC, shall issue the necessary
guidelines for the proper implementation scheme within thirty (30) days from
the effectivity of this Act.
SEC. 6. Disconnection of
Electric Service. – The
private electric utility or rural electric cooperative concerned shall have the
right and authority to disconnect immediately the electric service after
serving a written notice or warning to that effect, without the need of a court
or administrative order, and deny restoration of the same, when the owner of
the house or establishment of the same, when the owner of the house or
establishment concerned or someone acting in his behalf shall have been caught en
flagrante delicto doing any of the acts enumerated in Section 4 (a) hereof,
or when any of the circumstances so enumerated shall have been discovered for
the second time: Provided, That
in the second case, a written notice or warning shall have been issued upon the
first discovery: Provided, further,
That the electric service shall not be immediately disconnected or shall be
immediately restored upon the deposit of the amount representing the
differential billing by the person denied the service, with the private
electric utility or rural electric cooperative concerned or with the competent
court, as the case may be: Provided,
furthermore, That if the court finds that illegal use of electricity has
not been committed by the same person, the amount deposited shall be credited
against future billings, with legal interest thereon chargeable against the
private utility or rural electric cooperative, and the utility or cooperative
shall be made to immediately pay such person double the value of the payment or
deposit with legal interest, which amount shall likewise be creditable against
immediate future billings, without prejudice to any criminal, civil or
administrative action that such person may be entitled to under existing laws,
rules and regulations: Provided,
finally, That if the court finds the same person guilty of such illegal use
of electricity, he shall, upon final judgment, be made to pay the electric
utility or rural electric cooperative concerned double the value of the
estimated electricity illegally used which is referred to in this section as
differential billing.
For purposes of this Act, “differential billing” shall refer to the
amount to be charged to the person concerned for the unbilled electricity
illegally consumed by him as determined through the use of methodologies which
utilize, among others, as basis for determining the amount of monthly electric
consumption in kilowatt-hours to be billed either: (a) the highest recorded monthly consumption
within the five-year billing period preceding the time of discovery; (b) the
estimated monthly consumption as per the report of load inspection conducted
during the time of discovery; (c) the higher consumption between the average
consumptions before or after the highest drastic drop in consumption within the
five-year billing period preceding the discovery; (d) the highest recorded
monthly consumption within four (4) months after the time of discovery, or (e)
the result of the
ERB test during the time
of discovery and, as basis for determining the period to be recovered by the
differential billing, either: (1) the
time when the electric service of the person concerned recorded an abrupt or
abnormal drop in consumption, or (2) when there was a change in his service
connection such as change of meter, change of seal or reconnection, or in the
absence thereof, a maximum of sixty (60) billing months, up to the time of
discovery: Provided, however,
That such period shall, in no case, be less than one (1) year preceding the
date of discovery of the illegal use of electricity.
SEC. 7. Penalties. – (a) Violation of Section 2
– The penalty of prision mayor or a fine ranging from Ten thousand
pesos (P 10,000) to Twenty thousand pesos (P 20,000) or both, at the discretion
of the court, shall be imposed on any person found guilty of violating Section
2 hereof.
(b) Violation of Section 3 – The penalty of reclusion temporal or
a fine ranging from Fifty thousand pesos (P 50,000) to One hundred thousand
pesos (P 100,000) or both, at the discretion of the court, shall be imposed on
any person found guilty of violating Section 3 hereof.
(c) Provisions common to violations of Section 2 and Section 3 hereof. – If the offense is committed by, or in
connivance with an officer or employee of the power company, private electric
utility, or rural electric cooperative concerned, such officer or employee
shall, upon conviction, be punished with a penalty one (1) degree higher than
the penalty provided herein, and shall forthwith be dismissed and perpetually disqualified
from employment in any public or private electric utility or service company
and from holding any public office.
If, in committing the acts enumerated in Section 4 hereof, any of the other
acts as enumerated is also committed, then the penalty next higher in degree
herein shall be imposed.
If the offense is committed by, or in connivance with the officer or employee
of the electric utility concerned, such officer or employee shall, upon
conviction, be punished with a penalty one (1) degree higher than the penalty
provided herein, and forthwith be dismissed and perpetually disqualified from
employment in any public or private utility or service company. Likewise, the electric utility concerned
which shall have knowingly permitted or having knowledge of its commission
shall have failed to prevent the same, or was otherwise guilty of negligence in
connection with the commission thereof, shall be made to pay a fine not
exceeding triple the amount of the “differential billing” subject
to the discretion of the courts.
If the violation is committed by a partnership, firm, corporation, association
or any other legal entity, including a government-owned or –controlled
corporation, the penalty shall be imposed on the president, manager and each of
the officers thereof who shall have knowingly permitted, failed to prevent or
was otherwise responsible for the commission thereof.
SEC. 8. Authority to Impose
Violation of Contract Surcharges. –
A private electric utility or rural electric cooperative may impose surcharges,
in addition to the value of the electricity pilfered, on the bills of any
consumer apprehended for tampering with his electric meter/metering facility
installed on his premises, as well as other violations of contract like direct
connections, use of jumper, and other means of illicit usage of electricity
found installed in the premises of the consumer. The surcharge for the violation of contract
shall be collected from and paid by the consumer concerned as follows:
(a) First apprehension – Twenty-five percent (25%) of
the current bill as surcharge;
(b) Second apprehension – Fifty percent (50%) of the
current bill as surcharge; and
(c) Third and subsequent apprehensions – One hundred
percent (100%) of the current bill as surcharge.
The private electric utility or rural electric cooperative is authorized to
discontinue the electric service in case the consumer is in arrears in the
payment of the above imposed charges.
The term “apprehension” as used herein shall be understood to mean
the discovery of the presence of any of the circumstances enumerated in Section
4 hereof in the establishment or outfit of the consumer concerned.
SEC. 9. Restriction on the
Issuance of Restraining Orders or Writs of Injunction. – No writ of injunction or
restraining order shall be issued by any court against any private electric
utility or rural electric cooperative exercising the right and authority to
disconnect electric service as provided in this Act, unless there is prima
facie evidence that the disconnection was made with evident bad faith or
grave abuse of authority.
If, notwithstanding the provisions of this section, a court issues an injunction
or restraining order, such injunction or restraining order, such injunction or
restraining order shall be effective only upon the filing of a bond with the
court which shall be in the form of cash or a cashier’s check equivalent
to the “differential billing,” penalties and other charge, or to
the total value of the subject matter of the action: Provided, however, That such
injunction or restraining order shall automatically be refused or, if granted,
shall be dissolved upon filing by the public utility of a counterbond similar
in form and amount as that above required:
Provided, finally, That whenever such injunction is granted, the
court issuing it shall, within ten (10) days from its issuance, submit a report
to the
Supreme Court setting forth
in detail the grounds or reasons for its order.
SEC. 10. Rationalization of
System Losses by Phasing out Pilferage Losses as a Component Thereof. – There is hereby established a cap
on the recoverable rate of system losses as follows:
(a) For private electric utilities:
(i) Fourteen and a half percent (14 1/2%) at the end of the
first year following the effectivity of this Act;
(ii) Thirteen and one-fourth (13 1/4%) at the end of the
second year following the effectivity of this Act;
(iii) Eleven and three-fourths percent (11 3/4%) at the end
of the third year following the effectivity of this Act; and
(iv) Nine and a half percent (9 1/2%) at the end of the
fourth year following the effectivity of this Act.
Provided, That the
ERB is hereby authorized to determine at the
end of the fourth year following the effectivity of this Act, and as often as
may be necessary taking into account the viability of private electric
utilities and the interest of the consumers, whether the caps herein or
theretofore established shall be reduced further, which shall, in no case, be
lower than nine percent (9%) and accordingly fix the date of the effectivity of
the new caps: Provided, further,
That in the calculation of the system loss, power sold by
NPC or any other entity that supplies
power directly to the consumer and not through the distribution system of the
private electric utility shall not be counted even if the billing for the said
power is used through the private electric utility.
The term “power sold by
NPC or
any other entity that supplies electricity directly to a consumer” as
used in the preceding paragraph shall for purposes of this section be deemed to
be a sale directly to the consumer if:
(1) the point of metering by the
NPC
or any other utility is less than one thousand (1,000) meters from the
consumer, or (2) the consumer’s electric consumption is three percent
(3%) or more of the total load consumption of all the customers of the utility,
or (3) there is no other consumer connected to the distribution line of the
utility which connects to the
NPC or
any other utility point of metering to the consuming meter.
(b) For rural electric cooperatives:
(i) Twenty-two percent (22%) at the end of the first year
following the effectivity of this Act;
(ii) Twenty percent (20%) at the end of the second year
following the effectivity of this Act;
(iii) Eighteen percent (18%) at the end of the third year following
the effectivity of this Act;
(iv) Sixteen percent (16%) at the end of the fourth year following
the effectivity of this Act; and
(v) Fourteen percent (14%) at the end of the third year
following the effectivity of this Act.
Provided, That the
ERB is hereby authorized to determine at the
end of the fifth year following the effectivity of this Act, and as often as is
necessary, taking into account the viability of rural electric cooperatives and
the interest of consumers, whether the caps herein or theretofore established
shall be reduced further which shall, in no case, be lower than nine percent
(9%) and accordingly fix the date of the effectivity of the new caps.
Provided, finally,
That in any case nothing in this Act shall impair the authority of the
ERB to reduce or phase out technical or
design losses as a component of system losses.
SEC. 11. Area of
Coverage. – The caps provided
in Section 10 of this Act shall apply only to the area of coverage of private
electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives as of the date of the
effectivity of this Act.
The permissible levels of recovery for system losses in areas of coverage that
may be added on by either a private electric utility or a rural electric
cooperative shall be determined by the
ERB.
SEC. 12. Recovery of Pilferage
Losses. – Any private electric
utility or rural electric cooperative which recovers any amount of pilferage
losses shall, within thirty (30) days from said recovery, report in writing and
under oath to the
ERB: (a) the fact of recovery, (b) the date
thereof, (c) the name of the consumer concerned, (d) the amount recovered, (e)
the amount of pilferage loss claimed, (f) the explanation for the failure to
recover the whole amount claimed, and (g) such other particulars as may be required
by the
ERB. If there is a case pending in court for the
recovery of a pilferage loss, no private electric utility or rural electric
cooperative shall accept payment from the consumer unless so provided in a compromise
agreement duly executed by the parties and approved by the court.
SEC. 13. Information
Dissemination. – The private
electric utilities, the rural electric cooperatives, the
NPC, and the
National Electrification Administration shall,
in cooperation with each other, undertake a vigorous campaign to inform their
consumers of the provisions of this Act especially Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
and 8 hereof, within sixty (60) days from the effectivity of this Act and at
least once a year thereafter, and to incorporate a faithful condensation of
said provisions in the contracts with new consumers.
SEC. 14. Rules and
Regulations. – The
ERB shall, within thirty (30) working days
after the conduct of hearings which must commence within thirty (30) working
days upon the effectivity of this Act, issue the rules and regulations as may
be necessary to ensure the efficient and effective implementation of the
provisions of this Act, to include but not limited to, the development of
methodologies for computing the amount of electricity illegally used and the
amount of payment or deposit contemplated in Section 7 hereof as a result of
the presence of the prima facie evidence discovered.
The
ERB shall, within the same period,
also issue rules and regulations on the submission of the reports required
under Section 12 hereof and the procedure for the distribution to or crediting
of consumers for recovered pilferage losses.
SEC. 15. Separability
Clause. – Any portion or
provision of this Act which may be declared unconstitutional or invalid shall
not have the effect of nullifying other portions or provisions hereof.
SEC. 16. Repealing
Clause. – The provisions in
Presidential Decree No. 401, as amended by
Batas Pambansa Blg. 876, penalizing the unauthorized installation
of electrical connections, tampering and/or knowing use of tampered electrical
meters or other devices, and the theft of electricity are hereby expressly
repealed. All other laws, ordinances,
rules, regulations, and other issuances or parts thereof, which are
inconsistent with this Act, are hereby repealed or modified accordingly.
SEC. 17. Effectivity
Clause. – This Act shall take
effect thirty (30) days after its publication in the Official Gazette or
in any two (2) national newspapers of general circulation.
Approved, December 8, 1994.
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