Creation of G.O.C.C. pushed to solve Mindanao crisis

business world

SUNDAY, 22 APRIL 2012 19:47 MANUEL T. CAYON / REPORTER

DAVAO CITY—Mindanao will propose to President Aquino the creation of a government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC) to manage the Agus-Pulangi hydroelectric power complex, which the proponents said is a “net income earner” and which could be “isolated from the entire indebtedness of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to continue delivering affordable power to Mindanao power consumers.”

The new GOCC would take shape as soon as the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the socioeconomic planning unit for southern Philippines, receives the financial statement from the Napocor and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) on operation of six hydroelectric plants in Agus River in the two Lanao provinces and the Pulangi IV hydroelectric power plant in Bukidnon.

Secretary Lualhati Antonino, MinDA chief, said over the weekend the President had been informed about the latest power situation in Mindanao, using inputs from political, business and consumer organizations and small electric cooperatives.  She added that she had a private two-hour meeting with Mr. Aquino on Tuesday last week and that the President was “attentive and willing to look at what we would be recommending to him.”

“We [stood by] our position in the Mindanao Power Summit [held April 13], but contrary to general impression that the President was pushing to privatize the Agus-Pulangi complex, he was actually saying he would listen to what we would recommend,” Antonino told a news briefing on Friday at the MinDA office.

The financial statement of the Napocor and PSALM would be the crux of the proposal of the Mindanao Power Summit that Malacañang should agree with “to isolate the Agus-Pulangi complex from all the remaining assets of the Napocor that are lined up for privatization.”

“We are confident that the hydroelectric plants [in the two Mindanao rivers] are earning. There’s no doubt about it. We heard it from Napocor itself when it told Energy Secretary  Jose Almendras in our meeting in Malacañang last Tuesday,” Antonino said.

“From that report, we would be able to show the President the numbers that it is viable to operate them, that they can stand alone,” she added.

Antonino said she “was surprised and suspicious when the Napocor replied to a query by Sen. Teofisto Guingona III that it would submit the [financial] report in two weeks yet.” She added that she wondered why should it take that long when Napocor already has a report in 2002 at the start of the Epira (Electric Power  Industry Reform Act) and up to, “maybe 2009, pending the result of the two-year audit for the last two years.”

Davao del Norte Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario, in the Mindanao Power Summit, said the hydroelectric plants had earned P9 billion as of last year.

Antonino said the power summit would want Malacañang to take the Agus-Pulangi complex from the control and management of Napocor “and give it to a GOCC, and the government would be assured that it would not spend to subsidize these plants.”  article source