SHOULDN’T Panay Electric Co. (PECO) have gone directly to the Supreme Court instead of the Regional Trial Court (RTC-Branch 209) in Mandaluyong City to question the constitutionality of Republic Act (RA) 11212, awarding the 25-year power distribution franchise in Iloilo City to More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power)?
There must be a reason. But that’s another story. What’s on the frontline is the “permanent injunction” handed down on July 1, 2019 by Judge Monique A. Quisumbing-Ignacio of the aforementioned court declaring Sections 10 (Right of Eminent Domain) and 17 (Transition of Operations) of the franchise law “void and unconstitutional”.
Section 10 says, “The grantee may acquire such private property as is actually necessary for the realization of the purposes for which this franchise is granted, including but not limited to poles, wires, cables, transformers…Provided, that proper expropriation proceedings shall have been instituted and just compensation paid.”
Incidentally, MORE Power has already deposited in the bank the amount of P481,842,450 to be released to PECO as “just compensation” if expropriated.
Under Section 17, “Panay Electric Co. (PECO) shall in the interim be authorized to operate the existing distribution system within the franchise area… until the establishment or acquisition by the grantee of its own distribution system and its complete transition towards full operations as determined by the Energy Regulatory Commission.”
For reaction, this corner asked MORE Power’s president Roel Castro and lawyer Hector Teodosio. Both shrugged off the “permanent injunction” as incapable of preventing Judge Marie Yvette Go of RTC-Iloilo (Branch 37) from ruling on their application for a writ of possession authorizing MORE Power to take immediate control, operation, use, and disposition of PECO’s power-distribution assets; and to determine the reasonable value of those assets for just compensation.
“An RTC judge cannot overrule another RTC judge. They are co-equal,” Atty. Teodosio said. “Judge Go may rule on the case anytime from now and authorize the sheriff to seize the facilities sought for.”
One recalls that in its desire to stay afloat, PECO had much earlier (March 6, 2019) filed a petition for declaratory relief at RTC-Mandaluyong with application for a temporary restraining order and/or a writ of preliminary injunction. Consequently, the latter on March 12 issued a 20-day TRO ordering MORE Power not to push through with its expropriation proceedings against PECO.
In response MORE Power went to the Court of Appeals, which on March 28 issued a 60-day TRO against the RTC-Mandaluyong’s TRO.
Atty. Teodosio believes that since PECO would be exhausting all “legal remedies” to delay the implementation of RA 11212, MORE Power would now go to the Supreme Court for final and executory ruling.
If we interpret Atty. Teodosio right, PECO’s “legal remedies” are actually delaying tactics in view of Sec. 11 of the law providing that grantee’s franchise “shall be deemed ipso facto revoked in the event that the grantee fails to operate continuously for two years.”
But what a long way to go! It has only been five months since Feb. 14, 2019 when President Duterte signed RA 11212.
PECO continues to operate on temporary certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCPN).
The delay though is not without merit for MORE Power, which considers it part of the transition stage in recruitment and training of department heads and skeleton personnel who are now tasked to monitor existing PECO power lines, electric meters and other facilities that would be replaced and modernized.
“We want to hit the ground running,” President Roel Z. Castro told this writer, adding that his company had already inked contracts with power producers Korea Electric Power Corp. and Aboitiz Power Renewables Inc. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
