ILOILO City – MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) has no Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), hindering the company from operating power distribution services in this city despite being granted a legislative franchise.
MORE Power’s franchise, through Republic Act 11212, expressly subjects it to the provisions of the Public Service Act.
Section 3 of the Act, in turn, specifies that the franchise grantee (MORE Power) “shall secure from the ERC or any other government agency which has jurisdiction over the operation of the herein grantee, the necessary certificate of public convenience and necessity and other appropriate permits and licenses for the construction and operation of its electric distribution system.”
As such, with the exception of warehouses, airships, government-owned public services, bancas, animal-drawn vehicles, and radio companies, no public service shall operate in the Philippines without possessing a valid and subsisting CPCN, stressed Atty. Estrella Elamparo, PECO legal counsel.
With the absence of a CPCN, anything that MORE does that relate to the functions of electric distribution done for “general business purpose” may not be done without a CPCN, she added.
In other words, without a CPCN, MORE is under a blanket prohibition from engaging in any public service business, said Elamparo.
“The lack of a CPCN also prevents MORE Power from collecting payments from subscribers, which the company has been announcing in the last few days,” Elamparo further said.
In a letter to PECO subscribers, MORE Power announced that payments for the subscribers’ next cut-off should already be made to it whether directly or through duly authorized payment centers.
But the lack of a CPCN makes this act of collecting payments from PECO subscribers illegal, said Elamparo.
One other exception to the CPCN requirement would be if the franchise itself expressly states that the grantee of the legislative franchises is exempt from the requirement of securing a CPCN from the ERC.
“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,” Elamparo stressed.
“This only means that practically everything that MORE has been doing — from the hostile takeover to their announcement of already having full control of power distribution services, and even their directive to PECO subscribers to pay their next bill to MORE — are all illegal because of several legal hindrances,” Elamparo stressed. “It will be an act of stealing amounts that are due to PECO.”
She added, “We will take all the necessary legal steps to ensure that this travesty of justice is corrected and the perpetrators be made accountable under the law.”/PN
