ILOILO City – The Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) announcement that it revoked Panay Electric Co.’s (PECO) Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) was predicated on the false claims of MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power), according to PECO.
ERC chairperson and chief executive officer Agnes Devanadera sent a letter to both PECO and MORE Power stating that ERC revoked PECO’s CPCN after determining that MORE had “established or acquired its own distribution system.”
“The revocation of our CPCN is not yet final as we have not received any official directive from the ERC,” said PECO head of Public Engagement and Government Affairs Marcelo Cacho. “The announcement was premised on misrepresentations made by MORE, so we are currently apprising the ERC of the true situation on the ground.”
He added: “MORE has no right to provide power distribution services in Iloilo because it has no CPCN. Moreover, MORE does not have the necessary expertise to efficiently operate our facilities and serve the people of Iloilo.”
MORE Power took over five of PECO’s substations on Feb. 28, claiming it was allowed to do so through the strength of a Writ of Possession issued by Regional Trial Court, Branch 23’s Judge Emerald Requina-Contreras.
However, Judge Contreras declared in an addendum that “the operation should still be handled by PECO personnel who have the technical expertise” and that MORE Power personnel were only meant to observe at the moment.
In a hearing on March 6, Judge Contreras ordered MORE Power to return the operations of the power distribution facilities to PECO.
“We are currently waiting for Judge Contreras to issue the order to the sheriff so we can stabilize the power situation,” said Cacho.
In the meantime, he added, MORE Power continues to blatantly defy the court by doing meter replacement activities based on photos gathered after the hearing.
“We hope that MORE Power employees realize the gravity of their actions when they intentionally disobeyed the order of the court for replacing PECO’s electric meters. These are very serious offenses and we are set to file contempt charges against them,” Cacho stressed.
Meanwhile, a series of advertisements from MORE was released after the takeover indicating that the company was in full control of the power distribution facilities, and the company also released a letter to PECO subscribers that payments for the next cycle must be made to MORE Power instead.
Atty. Estrella
Elamparo, PECO legal counsel, denounced MORE Power’s attempt to collect
payments from consumers because it still lacks a CPCN that would allow it to
conduct business.
“MORE Power’s franchise itself, however, requires it to procure a CPCN from the
ERC, contrary to its announcement that their franchise does not require a CPCN
prior to the exercise of eminent domain,” she stressed.
In a subsequent order issued on March 2, Contreras ordered MORE Power to take down “all ads pertaining to its full operation” and has said that she would verify the statuses of both companies’ CPCNs herself with the ERC.
Despite successive court rulings, MORE Power insists it is the one purchasing power to be distributed to consumers, claiming, among others, that it purchased power from WESM. Sources from WESM and PECM, however, confirmed that, to date, it is only PECO that secures electricity from the spot market as it is the only entity registered with WESM.
Therefore, what
MORE intends to bill the consumers is electricity purchased by PECO, said
Elamparo.
MORE Power also maintains that it has
never agreed to PECO’s continued operation of the power distribution
facilities, but one of MORE Power’s own employees revealed that PECO, MORE and
the Court Sheriffs initially came to a verbal agreement that only one person
from MORE Power would be allowed in each substation.
“The decision of
the Iloilo RTC to direct MORE Power to give back power distribution operations
to PECO is a crucial development because it proves that everything that we have
been saying in the past few weeks is true,” Elamparo stressed.
The case regarding the constitutionality of the expropriation is still pending
in the Supreme Court./PN
