Tagbilaran Mayor Dan Lim and three city councilors last week formally filed a petition opposing the rate increase sought by the Bohol Light Company Inc. (BLCI). Aside from Lim, the petition was signed by Councilors Nerio Zamora II, Doni Piquero and Bebiano Inting. Zamora and Piquero are lawyers while Inting is a certified public accountant. The four public officials filed the petition for intervention before the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on the application for increase sought by BLCI. They filed the petition as intervenors in ERC case no. 2011-120 RC their personal capacity as consumers and as elected officials of Tagbilaran in light with their mandate to serve and protect the interest of their constituents. In their petition, the four said the increase sought by BLCI will greatly compromise the interest of the consumers who are undeniably wallowing in tight financial difficulties.

They alleged that the application for rate increase is being sought “even before the legal personality of (BLCI) has been established”. Among other grounds cited in the intervention, the four officials said the personality of BLCI is questionable since it is not the corporation with whom the provincial government entered into a joint venture agreement (JVA) but it was the Salcon Group of Companies. To enlighten the ERC, the intervenors gave a brief backgrounder of the issue. They narrated that before BLCI, the distribution unit providing electricity to the residents of Tagbilaran was the Provincial Public Utilities Department (PPUD) which was then owned and managed by the provincial government. The PPUD likewise provided water to the city residents. For reasons that are controversial, the intervenors said the provincial government represented by then Gov. Rene Relampagos and then Vice Gov. Edgar Chatto entered into a JVA with the Salcon Group.

According to published reports, the JVA essentially allowed Salcon 70% ownership of the public utility in both the electric and water distribution while the provincial government retained ownership of 30% of the shares after being paid millions of pesos for the assets used in the operation of the PPUD. The intervenors, however, stressed that this is only based on public pronouncements and publishes reports because “no document has yet been shown to prove the ownership of the said utility as well as the distribution of shares”. The petitioners said they are confused why it is now BLCI and not Salcon which manages and operates the distribution of electricity. “When and how the BLCI came into existence is speculative at best at this point and needs to be resolved first,” they stressed. The intervenors said the legal personality of BLCI must first be established because the agreement was supposed to be between the provincial government and Salcon and not BLCI.

Corollary to this issue, the intervenors said the city council where three of the intervenors are members, and the city government asked a copy of the JVA from the Office of the Governor and minutes of the committee hearings and sessions of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan during the time when the JVA was deliberated upon in order to be better apprised of the personality of BLCI in relation to the JVA and its petition for increase. “Up to the time of this writing, copies of the said documents formally requested relative to the (JVA) have yet to be received thereby denying intervenors the answers to the prejudicial questions being raised,” the petition noted. The petitioners also raised the same point raised in ERC Case No. 2007-122 RC on the lack or absence of a congressional franchise of BLCI. It is the position of the intervenors that BLCI has no legal personality to file the application since it has not been granted a franchise by Congress.

The petition cited section 27 of Republic Act No. 9136 otherwise known as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 that franchises to entities engaged in the transmission and distribution of electricity is vested exclusively in Congress. Aside from the final resolution on the issue on the legality of BLCI, the intervenors also oppose the application for increase because the residential class is being burdened and made to subsidize the distribution of the commercial class. The oppositors to the increase won the first round after BLCI decided to withdraw its application due to a technicality raised by the intervenors. Commenting on this, Lim said this will be advantageous to the consumers since the delay will mean a reprieve on any increase sought by BLCI.