Like the rest of the persecuted consumers of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), I was initially encouraged by the news earlier this week that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) had finally been shaken out of its torpor and obliged to fulfill its legal mandate to intervene in the scandalous electric rate-hike conspiracy carried out by the nation’s largest utility distributor and its electricity supply partners. In a ruling (ERC Case Number 2014-021MC) dated March 3 and made public this past Tuesday, the Commission voided the prices at which electricity was purchased in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) for the November and December 2013 supply months, and ordered the WESM to recalculate and re-bill the affected distribution utilities at the corrected rates within seven days.