BY GEROME DALIPE IV
ILOILO City – The Iloilo City Council yesterday granted the request of the City Legal Office to file a damage complaint against the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in a bid to recover the damages caused by the four-day blackout that hit Panay Island and the rest of Western Visayas.
During its regular session yesterday, the city council approved the motion of city hall lawyers to represent the city government to file any action before proper courts or quasi-judicial agencies relative to the massive power outage last Jan. 2 to 5, 2024.
The city council also approved giving the city lawyers authority to intervene and participate in the hearing of the case by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) regarding delayed implementation of NGCP’s approved capital expenditure (capex) projects.
City lawyers Edgardo Gil, GV Eutiquio Cunada, Llonil Virtebo, and Joseph Edward Areño will also represent the city government in the proceedings on the hearing of the case relative to the show-cause order issued against NGCP over the delayed implementation of power transmission projects.
These projects include 230-kiloVolt (kV) Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) Backbone, Iloilo Substation 3×100 megavolt amperes (MVA) 138/69-13.8-kV power transformers, and the Panay-Guimaras 138-kV Interconnection project.
In particular, the city lawyers are authorized to enter into amicable settlement on the case, or to simplify the issue. They can also make admissions and stipulations of the facts and formally offer exhibits or to limit the number of witnesses.
The city lawyers may also represent the city government during the mediation or other modes of alternative dispute resolution including proceedings during Judicial Dispute Resolution.
They can also enter into a compromise agreement or amicable settlement with the adverse party, prior conformity, approval, and ratification of the city council and sign and execute any pleading and certification against forum shopping, among others.
Among the hearing the city lawyers intended to attend was the clarificatory hearing relative to the show-cause order issued by the ERC against NGCP for delayed implementation of the latter’s approved capital expenditure (capex) projects.
In a three-page order dated Feb. 12, 2024, Monalisa Dimalanta, ERC chairperson, directed NGCP to attend the second clarificatory hearing via an online platform to allow the respondent to answer questions by the ERC on Feb. 21
The order for NGCP to attend the clarificatory hearing came as the country’s sole grid operator announced another round of power interruption in some parts of Iloilo city and province on Feb. 18, 2024.
The NGCP said the power interruption is to carry out preventive maintenance of its 100 MVA transformer No. 1 in the Iloilo substation.
The ERC issued a show-cause order against the NGCP asking it to explain the delay in the completion of the transmission projects in July 2023.
In an order dated June 14, 2023, the ERC ordered the NGCP to submit a “verified explanation” within 15 days from receipt of the order “why no administrative penalty should be imposed upon it.
The ERC noted that the timelines for the NGCP’s approved capital expenditure projects were not followed and the grid operator’s implementation of its projects has been delayed.
Among those delayed power transmission projects is the proposed 230-kV CNP Backbone project, a major part of the Transmission Development Plan (TDP) of NGCP.
Based on the 2016 TDP, the NGCP was supposed to have completed the proposed 230-kV CNP Backbone project in 2020, but the completion date has been delayed at least seven times from the original completion date of December 2020.
As of October 2023, the said project was 99.64 percent completed, but the estimated completion time is yet to be assessed based on the Transmission Project Status Report October 2023 update.
The other long-delayed transmission projects in the Visayas region include Stages 2 & 3 of the CNP 230 kV Backbone Project, Cebu-Lapu Lapu Transmission Project, Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project, Naga (Cebu) Sub-station Upgrading Project, Tagbilaran 69 kV Substation Project, Visayas Voltage Improvement Project.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has asked NGCP to implement its development plan, saying the four-day blackout on Panay Island could been prevented had the NGCP completed on time the 230-kV CNP Backbone Project.
NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza was quoted as attributing the delays to several factors such as procurement of rights of way and protracted permitting procedures./PN
