By Lenie Lectura - July 10, 2017
Top officials of the Energy
Regulatory Commission (ERC) are facing another set of charges before the Office
of the Ombudsman.
A group calling itself the Laban
Konsyumer Inc. (LKI) on Monday said it had filed criminal and administrative
charges against the suspended chairman of the ERC and three commissioners,
docketed as OMB-C-C-17-0242 and OMB-C-A-17-0212, respectively.
The consumer group, headed by lawyer
Victor Mario A. Dimagiba, alleged that ERC Chairman Jose Vicente B. Salazar,
who remains under preventive suspension, and commissioners Josefina Patricia
Magpale-Asirit, Gloria Victoria Yap-Taruc and Geronimo Sta. Ana violated their
mandate to ensure the adequate promotion of consumer interests under Section 41
of the Electricity Power Act, in relation to the recent power-rate hike brought
about by the scheduled 20-day shutdown of the Malampaya natural-gas facility,
which supplies 40 percent of Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) power
requirements, early this year.
The gas plants fueled by the
Malampaya facility had to resort to alternative fuel, which is more expensive
than gas.
The cases alleged corrupt practices
committed by the ERC executives, as well as violation of the Code of Conduct
governing public officials, through manifest partiality, evident bad faith and
gross inexcusable negligence when they awarded benefits to Meralco by granting
a petition to collect a total of P1.7 billion in March, April and May 2017 from
Meralco consumers.
This has resulted in an increase of
P0.2211-per-kilowatt-hour rate hike in the three months.
LKI accused the ERC officials of
violating the Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act 3019 Section 3e), the Code of
Ethics of Government Officers (RA 6713 Section 5a) and the Revised Penal
Code (Articles 204, 205 and 206). The original complaint was filed on
March 30, wherein the complainant was issued subpoena in Fact Finding
(FF)–C-17-0417, and was ordered to execute a supplemental affidavit complaint
to include administrative liability.
The consumers’ group challenged the
ERC order, dated March 6, as biased, against the consumers’ interest and
against the law, when the commissioners granted provisional authority in favor
of Meralco using the force majeure provisions of the Meralco Power Supply
Contracts, where force majeure is defined as all forms of fuel-supply
interruption.
The commissioners determined an
announced and scheduled preventive maintenance shutdown as force majeure and
allowed Meralco to pass on all added costs of fuels to the consumers,
instead of ordering these added costs to be absorbed by the
natural-gas supplier, said Dimagiba, former trade undersecretary.
Dimagiba added the gross inexcusable
negligence and bad faith of the commissioners in the discharge of their duties
is aggravated by the fact of the collective absences of the commissioners in
the hearings on the merits of the case (March 14, 17 and 27), wherein the
consumer group pleaded with the commission to suspend, reverse or recall the
provisional authority.
The above hearings were presided
over merely by a hearing officer, whereas, on the other hand, and as revealed
by their own records, the commission en banc had met twice with Meralco on the
subject matter even before the filing of their petition, LKI said.
The Ombudsman will now proceed with
the preliminary investigation of the criminal case and the adjudication of the
administrative case in accordance with Rules and Procedures of their Office.
These rules also authorized the
Ombudsman to order preventive suspension from office of all commissioners for
up to six months during the pendency of the investigation.
Earlier, Sanlakas, Freedom from Debt
Coalition and Heidi Nicodemus alleged in another complaint filed before the
Ombudsman that the ERC commissioners opted to delay the mandatory
implementation of the competitive selection process (CSP).
As a consequence, the complainants
said the commissioners allegedly gave unwarranted benefits, advantage and
preference to different distribution utilities (DUs), including Meralco and
generation companies (gencos), with expiring power-supply agreements (PSAs).
As a result, the DUs and gencos were
free to negotiate new PSAs under their own terms, caused undue injury to the
public who now have to suffer higher electricity rates from the disadvantageous
PSAs entered into by the DUs and gencos, the complaint stated.
The complaint alleged that the commissioners
deliberately adjusted the rules and implementation of the CSP, enabling Meralco
to push through with its PSAs without a transparent and public bidding.
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