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Chairman
Rodolfo Albano Jr. the other day officially ended his
tenure at the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). The
departure of the veteran lawyer-politician from Isabela
must have saddened his aides and peers at the ERC where
he was the big boss for six years. “Whatever negative
things may be said about him by his detractors, he
steered the ERC with a firm but gentle hand,” a
nostalgic assistant says of Albano.
I can
think of another group that may be misty-eyed over his
relinquishment of the ERC helm—the Lopezes, who control
the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).
No other
ERC chairman has been as kind to Meralco as Albano. The
record is there for all to see. About 98 percent of
Meralco’s rate-increase petitions were approved by the
ERC during Albano’s watch. He is the ERC chairman who
has not once ordered a formal audit of Meralco. Consumer
watchdog groups estimate that Meralco power rates have
more than trebled in the last six years.
That’s
why the Philippines today has the dubious distinction of
having one of the highest power rates in Asia. The
regulatory body charged by law to look after the
public’s interest has simply been dysfunctional or
unavailing.
Throughout Albano’s six long years in office, he had to
contend with Pete Ilagan, president of the
power-consumer watchdog group called Nasecore. Nasecore
has been persistently opposing, as intervenor, all
rate-increase petitions filed by Meralco. Ilagan has
also been vainly prodding the ERC to have Meralco’s
books of accounts audited by the Commission on Audit (COA)
to find out if it has been lying about the need to jack
up its rates every so often. But the ERC, true to form,
generally ignored Ilagan’s pleas.
In one
of the many approved rate-increase petitions, however,
the Supreme Court sided with Nasecore, and explicitly
ordered the ERC to get an audit. Still, nothing
happened. The COA did not feel obligated to comply,
based on a technicality. When Ilagan formally pointed
this out to Chairman Albano, the latter sent him the
following strongly worded reply (dated June 23, 2008):
“We take
exception to your insinuation of shortcoming on the part
of the ERC when it transmitted to the COA a copy of the
ERC order dated January 19, 2007, without any ‘covering
letter.’
“You
should know that. . . the ERC’s orders and decisions are
binding upon receipt thereof in accordance with the
rules of service the ERC has promulgated, and not in
accordance with whatever ideas you might have on what
constitutes proper service.
“We
believe you are already taking fault-finding to the
extreme and are brazenly trying to impose your will on
the ERC. We will not allow this.” (Sgd. Rodolfo Albano
Jr., chairman)
But
enough of that, since Albano is now history. What we
continue to suffer are Meralco’s extortionate rates,
which we hope will be substantially rolled back soon,
one way or another. The first and most preferred remedy,
of course, is to remove all the basic flaws of the
Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira). This would
be the long-term solution. Plugging the legal loopholes
that Meralco has been taking advantage of for the last
six years is the job of Congress. The question, of
course, is, will the legislature do it?
The
other option is an interim one, good only until 2010,
when the government, through the Government Service
Insurance System, takes over control of Meralco from the
Lopez Group, assuming it can free itself from the legal
knots the Lopez Group has cleverly immobilized it with.
After 2010, there will be a new administration. The
Lopez family knows this and must be preparing
accordingly for that eventuality.
But
right now, it is also essential for the government to
restore the ERC’s lost potency in balancing the public’s
interest against the tendency of power-distribution
companies to maximize their profits. The last six years
have shown how utterly limp and dysfunctional the ERC
has been.
Finding
the right replacement for Albano is crucial. We need an
ERC chairman who would be genuinely sympathetic to the
needs and problems of power consumers. But already, the
grapevine is full of disturbing news. Politics is
threatening to get in the way again. This does not bode
well for a public yearning for relief or deliverance
from the kind of hell Meralco has made its customers
suffer.
According to the grapevine, there are two female lawyers
actively contending for the vacancy left by Albano. One
is reportedly a daughter in law of Albano, and the other
one is an ex-congresswoman from Pampanga known for her
peripatetic nature.
I have
nothing yet on the daughter in law, but her kinship with
Albano in itself says volumes. Your speculations are as
good as mine.
But on
Zenaida Cruz-Ducut of Lubao, Pampanga, the Internet and
the newspapers provide some background bits and pieces.
According to the Business Bulletin, “she has knowledge
of the industry because she was in Congress when the
Epira was still being deliberated.”
The
52-year-old Ducut was described in a Philippine Daily
Inquirer news item as “a strong contender,” being a
close political ally of President Arroyo. Ducut likes to
travel, according to other sources. During her tenure as
congresswoman, in fact, she was listed as one of the
members of the House who spent the most on foreign
travel in 2001 alone.
The
names of lawyer Alberto Agra of the Office of the
Government Corporate Counsel and former Lanao del Norte
Rep. Alipio Cirilo Badelles have also been floated. But
Agra is reportedly not too keen on going for it. And
Badelles has been written off as “too far removed from
the power-rate woes of Luzon residents.”
Obviously, we need a longer list of candidates for the
position. Otherwise, the public’s faith in the ERC may
never be regained.
Omerta_bdc@yahoo.com |
