Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- January 17, 2020 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Department
of Energy (DOE) is closely monitoring the power situation in Iloilo City
especially in the summer months amid the legal tussle between Panay
Electric Co. (PECO) and More Electric Power Corp.
“Definitely, DOE is closely
monitoring the situation in Iloilo and has to ensure no disruption of
services,” said DOE director Mario Marasigan.
MORE was granted a franchise to
operate a distribution network in February last year while PECO’s franchise
expired in January last year.
Its franchise gives a two-year
transition period to PECO which was granted a certificate of public convenience
and necessity by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
“The issue in Iloilo is not on
supply, it’s on the operation of PECO plus their legal concerns with MORE,”
Marasigan said.
However, Marasigan said the DOE does
not expect any supply shortage in Iloilo City since Panay is still exporting to
Cebu and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) is operational in
Visayas.
As of Tuesday, the Visayas power
reserves reached 186 megawatts (MW) versus available generating capacity of
2,174 MW and demand of 1,988 MW.
After it was granted a franchise,
MORE had secured a go signal from the Iloilo regional trial court (RTC) to
expropriate PECO’s assets, but the 95-year-old utility firm had asked the
Mandaluyong RTC to stop the expropriation.
The case has reached the Supreme
Court (SC), which stopped the Mandaluyong RTC from enforcing its ruling which
declared the franchise granted by Congress to MORE and the expropriation of the
assets of PECO as unconstitutional.
MORE recently asked the SC to remove
the Iloilo RTC judge hearing its expropriation case against PECO for grave misconduct,
gross ignorance of the law, and violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Judge Daniel Antonio Gerardo Amular
said the expropriation case on the assets of PECO has become too politicized
that it should be transferred to a court outside Iloilo City.
But in a recent decision, the SC
denied the petition filed by PECO to move the case outside Iloilo City to
consolidate it with the case pending then with the Mandaluyong RTC.
In its resolution, the SC rejected
PECO’s premise that public scrutiny could affect the judge who handled the
expropriation proceedings as not valid as “the mere possibility of prejudice is
not sufficient to justify a transfer of venue, as aptly argue(d) by respondent
MORE.”
The High Court also said PECO failed
to present “adequate proof that the accompanying publicity may cause prejudice
to it.”
PECO also “failed to prove that a
miscarriage of justice would arise in the event of that the subject case
continues to be heard in the RTC of Iloilo City,” SC said.
“To the argument that there is
a possibility that the two co-equal courts (Iloilo City and Mandaluyong City
RTCs) would render conflicting decisions, the same had been rendered moot and
academic by the fact that the Mandaluyong RTC has already rendered its
judgment” which is now pending review by the SC.
MORE president Roel Castro said “the
SC order denying the petition of PECO to transfer venue of the case is self
explanatory. Anyone who reads it will understand the meaning of it.”
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