Let the SP shed light on brownouts

By Herbert Vego

 

FOUR members of Iloilo City’s Sangguniang Panglunsod (SP) – Rommel Duron, Ed Peñaredondo, Ely Estante and Jay Treñas — have expressed alarm over the unscheduled brownouts that discomforted residents of Mandurriao district the other Saturday night.

As the city’s new power distributor, MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) has fallen prey to malicious attacks by its predecessor, Panay Electric Co. (PECO), for being “inefficient and inexperienced”.

Those sound like “backfiring” inaccurate adjectives because most of MORE Power’s linemen had experienced working for PECO.

This columnist lauds councilor Duron, chair of the SP committee on public utilities, for scheduling a hearing on the problem tomorrow, with no less than MORE Power president Roel Z. Castro as a resource person.

 

“Sabotage” would be one of the angles that the Duron committee would probe.

 

Castro’s eagerness to cooperate with the city legislature is laudable. It would allow the city dads to ventilate the complaints of their constituents against the distribution utility.

I remember that the previous composition of the city council had also invited the officials of the then power franchisee, PECO, to answer consumers’ complaints but none of them showed up. It left the SP with no choice but recommend to Congress the non-renewal of its expiring franchise

There is no doubt that the aging distribution utility “inherited” by MORE Power from PECO is outliving its usefulness. Certainly, it could be the reason why one of the councilors lamented, “MORE Power should have put up its own.”

PECO had used the same argument in court, where it questioned the constitutionality of the law (RA 11212) granting MORE Power the franchise to distribute electricity for 25 years, quoting Section 1, Article 3 of the Philippine Constitution: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws.”

MORE Power’s defense is that there is no deprivation without due process, citing the “just compensation” of P482 million that the new franchisee is willing to pay PECO, which would have no more profitable use for its facilities. That is the essence behind the law’s expropriation clause.

Section 10 of RA 11212 covers the right of eminent domain authorizing MORE Power to expropriate “insofar as it may be reasonably necessary for the efficient establishment, improvement, upgrading, rehabilitation, maintenance and operation of its services.”

Section 23 of the power “bible” known as EPIRA (acronym for “Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001”), specifically provides, “Distribution utilities may exercise the power of eminent domain [expropriation vested with public interest].”

It would have been impractical and suspicious for MORE Power to put up its own facilities, thus gambling billions of pesos,  before filing an application for a franchise.

Also, it would have been impossible for the new player to put up its own substations within the same year of winning the franchise award.

Probably, what the Duron committee wants to hear from Mr. Castro is the assurance that it would take his company no more than three years to rehabilitate all five substations and put up two more to ensure an uninterrupted power supply.

MORE Power’s claim that PECO neglected to apply preventive maintenance in its last year of operation is believable, knowing its days were running out. The latter’s franchise would have expired on January 19, 2019 yet, but was extended pending resolution of court cases both companies had filed against each other.

It was only on February 29 this year that MORE Power officially took over following the judgment of the Regional Trial Court (Branch 23, Iloilo City) serving a writ of possession against PECO’s distribution system.

Unfortunately, we see PECO adamantly resisting the change. We would not be surprised if it had prevailed upon Ako Bisaya party-list Representative Sonny Lagon to file House Resolution 785 seeking inquiry on the widespread power outages in Iloilo City.

How would Lagon, a non-Ilonggo, behave on behalf of the Ilonggos whose congresswoman, Julienne “Jam” Baronda had welcomed the entry of Don Enrique Razon Jr. into the city’s economy?

Razon, the second richest man in the Philippines and MORE Power’s chairman, has bigger projects being planned here, including the expansion of the seaports at Iloilo City and Dumangas, Iloilo.