IT BAFFLES us that Panay Electric Co. (PECO) keeps on disobeying the law (Republic Act 11212) that awarded to MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) the new franchise to distribute electricity in Iloilo City.
PECO, whose franchise expired on Jan. 19, 2019, remains in business by the grace of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), which issued it a temporary certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) because there is need for the outgoing and incoming franchisee to work together like relay runners – one front runner handling the baton to the next – during the transition period.
The law as approved by the President on Feb. 14, 2019 has named MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) as the succeeding franchisee for the next 25 years.
The legal luminaries we have talked to could not understand why a law that is presumed valid until repealed by Congress or pronounced “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court (SC) could not be implemented just because PECO had questioned its constitutionality before a lower court.
Judge Monique Ignacio of Mandaluyong City RTC (Branch 209) declared the law “unconstitutional.”
Am afraid the scenario we have here is of the cart positioned ahead of the horse.
Worse, despite the Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order slapped against the Mandaluyong RTC’s ruling, Judge Daniel Antonio Gerardo Amular of RTC-lloilo (Branch 35) has not implemented the writ of possession that would have facilitated the turnover of the power distribution system from PECO to MORE Power.
Amular was supposed to proceed where another RTC judge, Yvette Go of RTC-Iloilo Branch 37, had left off. Go had already issued an order for a writ of possession because “this is a case involving electricity which is a basic necessity and vested with public interest.”
She inhibited herself, however, from determining the “just compensation” that MORE Power would have to pay PECO.
As a result, MORE Power’s president Roel Castro and lawyer Hector Teodosio filed an administrative complaint against Amular at the SC, seeking his dismissal for delaying the implementation of expropriation.
He reacted with a baseless observation that the power struggle between the two companies had become “too politicized”. If that were so, why did he reject the petition of MORE Power to inhibit himself from the case?
Instead of resolving the case, he suspended further proceedings, allegedly “for the best interest of the parties” even if none of the parties had asked for it.
He wanted the case transferred to a court outside Iloilo, which could further delay the implementation of expropriation demanded by Section 10 of RA 11212, saying that the franchise grantee “may acquire such private property as is actually necessary for the realization of the purposes for which this franchise is granted, including but not limited to poles, wires, cables, transformers.”
Section 17, on the other hand, says, “Panay Electric Co. (PECO) shall in the interim be authorized to operate the existing distribution system within the franchise area…until the establishment or acquisition by the grantee of its own distribution system and its complete transition towards full operations as determined by the ERC.”
And so what was expected of Judge Amular was a ruling on the fairness of the offered “just compensation” amounting to P481,842,450.
Meanwhile, PECO’s posts, transformers and wires continue to deteriorate, resulting in five poles burning within 10 days from Dec. 23 last year to Jan. 2 this year.
Hmmm, with no more incentive to upgrade, does “franchise-less” PECO still have enough maintenance crew in its payroll? (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
