The Power for People Coalition has appealed to Facebook to reconsider its decision to shut down its social media page “Nagmamahal, Meralco.”
According to P4P, the social media company cited its Terms of Use against hate speech in closing the Nagmamahal, Meralco (a pun on the word “nagmamahal” which could mean lovingly yours or price inflation) page which sought to protect consumers against the overbilling practices of the Manila Electric Co.
The page was closed after it published content demanding that Meralco refund P19 billion in overcharged fees and led complaints against the utility for increasing household billings by as much as four times the normal rate during the enhanced community quarantine.
“We received a notice that someone has complained about our posts. We have received similar complaints before, but we trusted Facebook to act correctly since nothing ever came out of these complaints. But on 9 June, we were unpublished by Facebook, and received an email saying that ‘pages which are hateful, obscene, or threatening are not allowed.’ We have filed an appeal and released an open letter to Facebook which disputes the process and the findings of that process,” Gerry Arances, convenor of the P4P, said in a statement.
“Recently, we have been posting information regarding Meralco’s overbilling during the quarantine and our efforts to reclaim P19 billion that have yet to be refunded to consumers. These are legitimate concerns that have been heard before the Joint Congressional Energy Commission, in which P4P was invited to speak. Apart from these posts, which are clearly not hateful, threatening, or obscene, we have never posted any false information, alleged any officer employee of Meralco to have any personal scandal, nor made any criticism that cannot be backed up by facts,” said the group in an open letter to Facebook.
P4P has sent an open letter to the US-based company addressed to its local representative disputing the decision.
