Something is in the air, and it doesn’t smell good. You might get a whiff of what I mean if you happen to be standing downwind from the Pacific Center building on San Miguel Avenue, Ortigas Center, particularly from the 12th to the 18th floors. That part of this uppity new building, by the way, is where you will find the offices of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

As you know, the ERC is the government agency that has, for the past five or six years, been known to be notoriously remiss in its duty to protect the public interest against excessive power rates.

Am I saying, then, that this agency is getting set to approve yet another unjustified, immoral and punishing power-rate increase? Maybe so, maybe not. But even the insiders—mostly low-ranking technical staffers—sense that something is definitely cooking based on what they see and hear from the internal grapevine.

A member of the legal staff of the ERC told me in confidence, but in too general terms, that ERC Chairman Rodolfo Albano Jr., who is officially retiring on the 31^st of May, is getting set to do a “spectacular swan song.”

Pressed to be more specific, he said, “Among hard drinkers, it’s called one for the road!” I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what he meant, but he wouldn’t open up completely, so I left it at that.

That conversation, however, made me review the columns I wrote about the ERC last year, which harped on one theme—that the public has been largely unsatisfied with the performance of the ERC under Albano.

This sentiment, incidentally, was expressed by a “concerned Meralco subscriber” in a letter to this column last week (“Rice prices, power rates”). He said it was under Albano that the outrageously high 15.6-percent systems-loss charge and the 15.4-percent return-on-rate base charge became a regular part of Meralco’s monthly billings to its large residential and commercial consumers.

In the item I wrote for the August 8 issue of “Omerta” (“Questions for ERC Chairman Albano”), I asked whether or not he was in favor of the idea of passing on some P27 billion in damages Meralco has been ordered by the Supreme Court to pay to the National Power Corp. (Napocor) for unilaterally revoking on the third year a 10-year power-supply contract for 1994 to 2004.

The public must know that at the time the Napocor got a favorable court judgment, the damages had amounted to P27 billion. Since Meralco has not settled a single centavo of the damages to this day, that amount must be equivalent to more than P50 billion by now.

What Meralco did was sue for time with endless appeals and motions for review and, finally, by 2003, it had managed to draw up a settlement agreement with Napocor that all the damages it would pay to Napocor would be passed on to Meralco subscribers!

The signatories to that unbelievable agreement on the part of the government were Rogelio M. Murga, then the president and CEO of Napocor, and Edgardo del Fonso, then the president of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.. For Meralco, the signatories were Jesus P. Francisco, president and COO, and Christian S. Monsod, Meralco board member.

Fortunately for helpless Meralco subscribers, the settlement contract could not take effect without the express approval of the ERC—specifically the portion saying that the damages that must be paid by Meralco would be passed on to, and therefore shouldered by, its subscribers.

That settlement agreement has remained pending at the ERC under Albano since it was inked on July 15, 2003. Albano, for some reasons, has chosen not to act on it one way or the other, although the contract is clearly in violation of the public’s interest and should have been promptly thrown out.

How nice it would be if, as an elegant and grand gesture of farewell to a skeptical public, Albano chose to tear up this abominable scrap of paper that is nothing more but a pact to defraud the public. That would be a really memorable swan song. But I’m afraid such a noble gesture would not be in character.

But the very least the public could hope for is that Albano would prove his critics wrong and not try to railroad a midnight approval. He can just leave the issue to his successor.

In any case, we would be watching out for any stench that may waft our way from the Pacific Center building on San Miguel Avenue, Ortigas Center, from now until the 31^st of May.  

Omerta@yahoo.com

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