The Department of Energy deserves credit for taking a long-overdue step toward making electricity bills fairer: removing non-technical system losses from what ordinary consumers are required to pay.

For too long, households and businesses that faithfully pay their bills have effectively been made to shoulder the consequences of electricity theft, illegal connections, meter tampering, and other preventable losses. That is fundamentally unfair. A consumer who pays for every kilowatt-hour used should not be billed for electricity consumed by someone else.

Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said the DOE is preparing a four-stage, ₱7.5-billion program to eliminate non-technical losses, beginning with a 25-percent reduction and eventually reaching full elimination. The plan includes anti-pilferage enforcement, consumer education, improved billing and collection, better meter management, database cleansing, institutional reforms and regulatory adjustments.

This is a welcome policy direction. The DOE should be commended for recognizing that consumer protection cannot merely mean controlling the price of electricity. It must also mean ensuring that consumers are charged only for costs that are legitimately theirs.

But the reform should not stop there.

The government should also move decisively to remove technical system losses from consumers' electricity bills.

Technical losses are different from electricity theft. They arise from the physical realities of transmitting and distributing electricity through wires, transformers, and other equipment. Yet while some technical loss may be unavoidable, that does not mean consumers should automatically be responsible for paying for it. The Energy Regulatory Commission has itself said that recovery of both technical and non-technical system losses from consumers can ultimately be reduced to zero or prohibited, although a transition may be necessary to protect financially weaker utilities. The crucial question is not whether technical losses exist, because they do. The question is who should bear their cost.

Every industry experiences losses. Manufacturers account for defective products. Retailers expect inventory shrinkage. Banks prepare for loan defaults. Airlines factor in operational disruptions. These are recognized as costs of doing business. They are not routinely transferred to customers simply because companies can pass them along.

Electricity distribution should be held to the same principle.

If utilities know that consumers and government will ultimately absorb system losses, the commercial pressure to modernize aging infrastructure, install more efficient transformers, improve network design, deploy smart meters and strengthen operational efficiency is weakened. But when companies bear the financial consequences of inefficiency, the incentive to innovate becomes stronger.

This is not an argument for suddenly destabilizing electric cooperatives or distribution utilities. It is an argument for a carefully designed transition, with clear loss-reduction targets, transparent benchmarks, enforceable deadlines and appropriate regulatory oversight. Utilities that demonstrate genuine investment and measurable improvements should be treated differently from those that simply accept excessive losses as a recoverable cost.

The Philippines needs an electricity system where efficiency is rewarded, wastage is punished and accountability follows responsibility.

The DOE has opened that door by taking non-technical losses off consumers' shoulders. It should now push it wider.

Filipinos should pay for the electricity they consume—not for electricity that disappears along the way.