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Today is
the day the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will hold its
annual stockholders’ meeting, but it will be one unlike
any other it has ever held in the past.
For one
thing, unlike in past meetings, this one will not be a
brief and staid event where the participants would
dutifully act out assigned roles scripted by the Lopez
group.
This one
will definitely not be short and sweet. It is, in fact,
expected to be tension-filled, “bloody” in a sense and
full of spectacular fireworks.
At issue
in today’s stockholders’ meeting is whether or not
management control of the Meralco should remain in the
hands of the Lopez group, which has an equity stake of
less than 32 percent.
On the
other side of the fence is director Winston Garcia,
president-general manager of the Government Service
Insurance System (GSIS). Garcia has taken up the cudgels
for the public that, he says, has long been suffering
the oppressive power rates imposed by the
Lopez-controlled Meralco.
He
believes that through deceitful “self-dealing” (or
sweetheart deals with other Lopez-owned companies) and
other management abuses, the Lopez group has wantonly
violated the mandate of Meralco’s franchise, a violation
amounting to a callous betrayal of the public interest.
Garcia
goes to corporate battle today armed with the GSIS’s
25-percent Meralco stockholdings, plus the proxies of
other government financial institutions (among them the
Social Security System) for a total of 36 percent of the
voting rights. To take control of Meralco, director
Garcia needs six directors or a majority of the 11-man
board to vote for a reorganization.
Theoretically, director Garcia has the numbers to pull
this off. He already has a base of four directors’ seats
that are the equivalent of the 36-percent government
stake. He also presumably has the proxies of the two
“independent” directors, who, he said, have been assured
that their vote will be in accordance with the
overwhelming public sentiment on the power-rate issue.
Unfortunately, however, the Lopez group is not expected
to sit on its hands in this epic struggle for management
control of Meralco. The consensus in business circles is
that the Lopez group would fight tooth and nail to
retain their grip of the prized cash cow that Meralco
has always been to them for almost three generations. At
no other time since the Cory Aquino government gave back
Meralco to them in a silver platter has their hold of
the giant utility been so threatened.
Problem
is, Garcia himself, interviewed by the Inquirer the
other day, didn’t seem too confident about his chances
of success. He was quoted as saying that the Lopez group
would resort to all sorts of “dirty tricks,” including
the use of illegal proxies, to remain in the management
saddle.
He told
me personally yesterday afternoon that part of the
defensive plan of the Lopezes was to declare illegal
some 400 proxies now in his hands. Such a ploy, unless
thwarted, could result in the reduction of the
government’s entitlement in the board from four to only
three slots. If and when that happens, instead of
unseating the Lopez group, Garcia himself would get
thrown out of the board!
I had to
get it from him firsthand. He did sound a bit
pessimistic. He said among the dirty tricks allegedly
lined up by the Lopez group in preparation for today’s
confrontation were the following:
• For
some 4,000 front-office Meralco employees, today will be
a nonworking “holiday” of sorts. However, most of their
warm bodies are all expected to come in early to fill up
all the seats in the capacious Meralco theater and
ensure that no seats would be available to legitimate
Meralco shareholders. Their instructions: Heckle Garcia
with boos and hisses whenever Garcia takes the floor.
• A few
hundred of these employees would pose as placard-waving
GSIS employees objecting to the use of pension funds for
Garcia’s takeover bid. They would be stationed outside
the theater. Their assignment: to accost Garcia as the
latter makes his way to the meeting.
• The
incumbent Meralco management has deployed a regiment of
80 lawyers with instructions to fire a fusillade of
technicalities to stymie every manifestation Garcia or
his own lawyers would make on the floor.
• An
offer to provide live television coverage of the
proceedings of the annual meeting of this publicly
listed corporation by GMA 7, the archrival of the
Lopez-owned ABS-CBN network, was flatly rejected by
management.
In the
face of all these machinations to ensure the Lopez
group’s stranglehold on Meralco, Garcia could only say:
“I can only continue believing that a strong public
opinion can right the things that are wrong in Meralco.
Let the people be the judge.”
Garcia
has been maintaining that it is precisely the lack of
transparency in Meralco’s operations under the Lopezes
that made it possible for the power-distribution utility
to charge its customers so excessively. Power rates can
be reduced by as much as 60 percent under a management
that is fully aware of its corporate social
responsibility.
Garcia
has fought, and valiantly at that, to put an end to the
regime of high power rates foisted on Meralco’s captive
4.4 million customers.
He vowed
that even if they persist in playing dirty, he would not
back down. He said he would bring this fight to the
courts, if necessary. Garcia, himself a lawyer, also
warned them, however, that members of the Lopez group
“could go to jail” for callously flouting the law and
disregarding the public welfare.
Indeed,
the Lopez group’s overall position has run smack against
the public’s crying need to see their power rates
slashed to reasonable levels. In this connection,
several nongovernment organizations, including
home-owners’ associations, labor groups and a number of
cause-oriented federations, would be loudly expressing
this sentiment and their support for Garcia by coming in
force this morning to the Meralco grounds on Ortigas
Avenue in Pasig.
Since
all the seats at the Meralco theater would be taken,
they would have to be content to wait outside for news
on the outcome of the meeting.
As a
badly battered Meralco customer, I think I’ll go there
myself, too, before 9 a.m. to help give Winston some
encouragement. The day ahead looks tough and
unappealing. Winston Garcia will need all the support we
can give.
Omerta_bdc@yahoo.com |
