THE longer the expropriation proceedings get stranded “just around the corner,” the longer the power consumers in Iloilo City wonder whether the law (Republic Act 11212) would ever be implemented within two years.
Republic Act (RA) 11212, to reiterate, is a seven-month old “act granting MORE Electric and Power Corp. [MORE Power] a franchise to establish, operate, and maintain, for commercial purposes and in the public interest, a distribution system for the conveyance of electric power to the end users in the City of Iloilo.”
Passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and approved by President Rodrigo Duterte, the law transfers to MORE Power the new 25-year franchise that had been the domain of Panay Electric Co. (PECO) for 96 years.
It is already public knowledge that court cases filed against each other by the two power players have somehow snagged what could have been a simple act of cooperation where the old franchisee would hand over power-distribution facilities to the new one in a transition period not exceeding two years.
Given that cooperation, Judge Daniel Antonio Gerardo Amular of the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City (RTC Branch 35) might have already ordered a “writ of possession” that would facilitate the transfer of the power-distribution system from PECO to MORE Power in exchange for the offered “just compensation” amounting to P482 million.
But the former, having acquired a provisional certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) from the Energy Regulation Commission (ERC), opted to question the constitutionality of the law, citing Section 1, Article III of the 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.”
This writer italicized “without due process” to stress an exception, as in expropriation proceedings where one entity may only sequester another’s presumed property at cost, by government’s authority, whenever vested with public interest.
Nevertheless, PECO petitioned another RTC in Mandaluyong City to issue a temporary restraining order against MORE Power due to “unconstitutionality” of the law.
But RTC-Mandaluyong, being a co-equal, could not hinder RTC-Iloilo from enforcing the expropriation as required by law. In fact, Judge Amular has already requested the ERC to submit to him a list of PECO’s power distribution assets.
Since the law is presumed valid unless amended by Congress or ruled “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court, the rule of RTC Mandaluyong would not matter.
This corner finds it “misleading” that PECO’s management berated MORE Power for being “magnanakaw ng negosyo” (business thief). On the contrary, the “just compensation” means what it says. If it were not so stated and the new company would have to start from scratch, then old PECO would have to junk its poles, meters, vehicles, transformers and cables without getting a single centavo.
If we heard we heard MORE Power’s president Roel Z. Castro right, ”just compensation” would already be bonus payment because, through the years, the customers have already paid PECO more than enough for the distribution system, a cost which is embedded piecemeal in monthly billings.
With the exception of new concrete poles, most of the existing “spaghetti wirings,” meters, feeders and transformers have to be replaced for being behind the modern times.
We know that Rep. Julienne “Jam-jam” Baronda had that in mind when she told her colleagues in the House, “That is against public interest. That is not for the benefit and welfare of the people of Iloilo City, which I represent.” (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
