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THE
stage is set for what a senator described as a “battle
of titans” when Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)
president Winston Garcia faces off with top officials of
the Lopez family-controlled Manila Electric Co. at
today’s Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC)
hearing on high power rates, amid speculations of a
Garcia-led scheme for a government takeover of Meralco.
“I
expect it to be a battle of titans,” Sen. Miriam
Santiago said over the weekend. “I will ask Garcia of
the GSIS to enumerate as briefly as possible the ways in
which he thinks Meralco has been mismanaged, such as to
result in very high electricity rates.”
But
Santiago, who cochairs the JCPC with Lakas Rep. Mikey
Arroyo of Pampanga, clarified that the commission’s
public hearing, which starts at 10 a.m., is “not really
concerned with the ownership issue,” referring to the
brewing boardroom brawl between Garcia and the Lopezes
for control of the Meralco board.
“That is
the business of business. But we in the JCPC are
concerned with the issue of very high electricity
rates.… Our concern here is very basic: Why is
electricity so expensive?” she asked in the vernacular.
At the
same time, the Lopez group expressed doubts on the
government’s capability to run Meralco.
“If the
government thinks it can do a better job in Meralco, it
can go ahead and buy us out. But looking at how Napocor
[National Power Corp.] has and is still being
mismanaged, I have my doubts the government can do a
better job,” Oscar Lopez, chairman of First Philippine
Holdings Corp. (FPHC), said in a statement at the
weekend.
Lopez
stressed that he was not interested in meeting Garcia
“since there is nothing more to talk about.”
“I
refuse to be drawn into Garcia’s publicity game,” said
the FPHC official.
Lopez
also reacted to Garcia’s and Press Secretary Ignacio
Bunye’s statements that all they want from Meralco is
transparency.
“Meralco
had been as transparent as the law requires it to be. If
there is anything wrong at all, it is the fact that
Meralco is even overregulated,” said Lopez, adding that
the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Securities and
Exchange Commission and Commission on Audit (COA) go
through all Meralco’s books and transaction records all
the time.
Besides
Garcia and Meralco president Jesus Francisco, also
invited to the JCPC hearing are Energy Secretary Angelo
Reyes, National Power Corp. (Napocor) president Cyril
del Callar, ERC Chairman Rodolfo Albano, Party-list Rep.
Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, Meralco vice president
Ivanna de la Peña, Walden Bello of the Freedom from Debt
Coalition, Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis,
Party-list Rep. Liza Masa of Gabriela, National
Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms
president Pete Ilagan and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
president Renato Reyes.
Santiago
said she would first ask Garcia at the hearing to
enumerate all his arguments for taking over Meralco
management, so commission members could hear his version
of why electric rates are skyrocketing; after which
Meralco officials would be given time to reply.
She
hinted that at the next hearing, the JCPC would crack
down on a syndicate in the industry suspected to be
manipulating the sale of coal supply needed to run some
of the Napocor’s generating plants.
“There
are forces in the electric-power industry maneuvering to
put the bulk of our power source from coal, because they
can pad substantially the price when they sell coal to
Napocor. We will also look at that. It’s very likely,
therefore, that this Monday’s inquiry would extend to
another hearing next Monday, this time on the coal
issue,”
Santiago
said in Filipino.
Meanwhile, a GSIS official asked if Meralco offices and
branches are exempted from paying their own power
consumption worth several billions of pesos.
Lawyer
Estrellita Elamparo, GSIS spokesman, raised this
question after she received reports that the electricity
consumption of Meralco’s corporate offices and branches
were not accounted for.
“We
would investigate the reports that Meralco offices and
branches are not paying their electricity bills and
instead are passing these on to consumers,” she said.
“If this
were true, for how much has Meralco defrauded the
public, and for how long? Certainly, it may run to
billions which the suffering public has unknowingly and
haplessly paid for years,” she said.
This
developed as Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel
Jr. viewed the threat of a government takeover of
Meralco as “nothing but a ploy to compel its
sister-company, ABS-CBN broadcast network, to stop being
critical of the Arroyo presidency.”
In a
separate statement, Pimentel said President Arroyo and
her advisers know that it would be folly to push for a
state takeover of Meralco because of the government’s
dismal record in managing business enterprises, the
stigma of corruption hanging over the administration and
because it will be totally inconsistent with its
much-ballyhooed privatization policy in the power
sector.
“We do
not like the government taking over Meralco. But I’m
sure that is not the intention of the President. She
merely wants to silence ABS-CBN and other media
facilities owned by the Lopezes so they can be used for
the propaganda of the administration,” he said.
A
government takeover of Meralco would contradict the
government policy laid down under the Electric Power
Industry Reform Act to privatize the Napocor. He said
the yarn to take over Meralco or to replace the Lopez
group in managing the power distribution company “looks
all the more pathetic given the gargantuan financial
losses incurred by Napocor from the operations of its
power plants and other assets.”
The GSIS
should give its plan to a buy out the Lopezes in Meralco
a second look, a government union said, adding that the
drop in the power company’s share price should serve as
warning.
Besides,
the government, according to the Confederation of for
Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government
Employees (Courage), is not into the business of buying
out companies for the benefit of administration cronies.
Reacting
to the drop in Meralco’s shares by 2.8 percent (a
P4-billion paper loss, according to an exclusive report
in the BusinessMIrror’s May 9-10 issue,)
and GSIS’s alleged plan to take over Meralco, Ferdinand
Gaite, Courage president, said the government should not
gamble with the people’s hard-earned money and should
steer clear away from the dangerous business of power
distribution, or it might end up eventually losing a lot
of money.
“We’ve
been telling the government all along. They should not
gamble with the people’s hard-earned money by buying
company shares,” Gaite said.
“This is
political because, obviously, the owners of Meralco are
not allies of the administration,” Gaite said.
He
suspects the Aboitiz family has a stake in this ongoing
war between GSIS and the Lopezes. “Aboitiz has a stake
in the power industry. It has been in the
power-distribution and power-generation business and it
may be one of the potential beneficiaries of this
ongoing war,” Gaite said.
GSIS is
one of the biggest shareholders of Meralco. Garcia has
been questioning the power distributor’s policy in
passing its losses to the consumers. (With J. Mayuga) |
