IT FINALLY came to pass that amor propio and a severe case of entitlement was not enough, more so if you don’t have a single legal leg to stand on. Then you finally realized that a franchise is a privilege and not a right.
It would have been a smooth transition when the franchise of Panay Electric Co. (PECO) expired last Jan. 18, 2019 and President Rodrigo Duterte signed on Feb. 14, 2019 Republic Act 11212 granting MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) the franchise as the sole power provider of “I Am Iloilo City”, yet it dragged on for two years as PECO employed delaying tactics, including childish tantrums.
But enough is enough; 100 years is a long time the death knell of PECO has sounded, and the final nail to its coffin was just hammered into place a couple of days ago.
Excerpts from the May 12, 2020 issue of Panay News:
Treñas revokes PECO business permit
Mayor Jerry Treñas has revoked the business permit of Panay Electric Co. (PECO).
His Executive Order No. 71 on such was served yesterday by the Business Permits and Licensing Office (BPLO) to PECO’s business office on General Luna Street.
The order, dated May 8, was “effective immediately.”
The BPLO personnel who served to PECO the executive order was assisted by the Public Safety and Transportation Management Office and Iloilo City Police Office.
In this city, a private power distribution utility is required to have the following:
* Legislative franchise
* Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) pursuant to Republic Act No. 9136 (Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001)
“PECO does not have a legislative franchise and CPCN to continue legally operating,” Treñas pointed out.
PECO’s franchise expired on Jan. 19, 2019 and it failed to secure an extension or a new one from Congress.
Congress instead granted the franchise to new power distribution utility MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power). President Rodrigo Duterte signed the franchise law (Republic Act 11212) on Feb. 14, 2019.
PECO’s CPCN was also revoked by ERC. The Commission instead granted it to MORE Power.
In another blow to PECO, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 23 hearing the expropriation case that MORE Power filed against PECO denied PECO’s motions questioning MORE Power’s takeover of the latter’s power distribution assets.
After all the delaying tactics in court, childish tantrums, prayer rallies, blitzes on mainstream and social media, PECO is officially dead. All it needs now is a requiem mass preferably by that so-called running priest Fr. Robert Reyes.
As I said ,it would have been a smooth and profitable transition for PECO whose franchise expired and was not renewed to perhaps a fine dining restaurant, a wine bar, maybe even a gay bar.
But no. From Day 1 it was not meant to be as the expropriation case against PECO was dropped like a hot potato from one judge to another, all of whom presented whatever reason they could conjure to inhibit themselves from what was legally a mere ministerial thing.
A case of “no balls” or just plain and simple “white balls”. Or as we say in Hiligaynon, “puti itlog”.
All the dillydallying just added controversy to what was already a controversial issue until Judge Emerald K. Requina-Contreras of the Regional Trial Court Branch 23 decided on the expropriation case, giving MORE Power the legal right to take over as the sole power provider of “I Am Iloilo City” which is their legal right in the first place. That is according to Republic Act 11212.
For almost 100 years PECO operated with impunity with nary a care for the natives of “I Am Iloilo City”. The words “customer care”,” customer relations” and “social responsibility and accountability” were never part of PECO’s DNA. It was only recently when the threat of actually losing its franchise when it expires and the fact that there was another power company waiting in the wings that PECO came up with a semblance of going through the motions of “customer care and relations”.
Most natives were saying PECO’s going through the motions of “customer care and relations” were at best several decades too late.
So if invitations (RSVP of course) for the funeral was already sent out, all that is left is for RTC Branch 23 to hear the second phase of the expropriations case which is the “just compensation” for PECO. As of this writing, MORE Power had escrowed P481,842,450 in Landbank as the “just compensation” for PECO.
They should accept that amount. After all, it is pure profit. After 100 years, whatever investment they had spent had already been paid for by the natives of “I Am Iloilo City”. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
