"What could be the reason for the seeming lack of interest of the Committee on Energy in this hearing?"
"What could be the reason for the seeming lack of interest of the Committee on Energy in this hearing?"
Our 1987 Constitution contains enough guidelines on the proper conduct or behavior of our public officials.
In Section 12, Article VI, "The Legislative Department", it says: "All Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall, upon assumption of office, make a full disclosure of their financial and business interests. They shall notify the House concerned of a potential conflict of interest that may arise from the filing of a proposed legislation of which they are authors."
In Section 1, Article XI, "Accountability of Public Officers," we have this: "Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives."
My question is: Are our current crop of public officials even aware of these constitutional provision? If they are, there won't even be any need for the Office of the Ombudsman or the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft court.
To answer my own question: Obviously not. It seems to me that these provisions are honored more in the breach than in the observance, and that's why the Ombudsman has more than a handful of complaints against public officials than it can handle.
We find it unfortunate therefore that we encounter one too many cases of conflict of interest on the part of our public officials.
One such case brought to our attention involves a recent congressional hearing on the national government's efforts to ensure energy sufficiency and sustainability. This was jointly conducted by the House Committees on Public Accounts and on Good Government and Public Accountability. The hearing was also convened to determine what the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation should do to collect billions of pesos in receivables from independent power producer administrators (IPPAs).
The hearing, we're told, was attended by officials from the Department of Energy and PSALM. The latter manages all existing debts of the National Power Corp., capital lease payments to independent power producers (IPPs), and the outstanding obligations of electric co-ops to the National Electrification Administration (NEA).
But wait a second. If the topic of the hearing was energy and the uncollected receivables of PSALM, doesn't it stand to reason, keen observers say, that the Committee on Energy should have been the lead committee? This committee is chaired by Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco.
What could be the reason for the seeming lack of interest of the Committee on Energy in this hearing?
In the course of the hearing, PSALM said that as of 2019, it had already collected P70.2 billion from various IPPAs. However, the huge amount of P33.6 billion remains uncollected from several delinquent IPPAs.
Several IPPAs were forced to pay their debts after PSALM initiated cases in court against them.
One IPPA, however, stood out like a sore thumb because it has refused to pay its debt of P24.56 billion up to now. South Premiere Power Corp. (SPPC) operates the Ilijan gas-fired power plant in Batangas City. SPPC is owned by a big business conglomerate whose head honcho is among the richest in the country according to Forbes magazine.
This billionaire is said to have stood as one of the principal sponsors during the wedding of Velasco and his wife in 2012. He is is also rumored to have supported Velasco’s speakership bid in 2019, and is often seen as a guest of honor in the latter's gatherings.
SPPC’s unpaid account represents more than 70 percent of the total amount of uncollected receivables by PSALM, which has long been trying to collect the amount from SPPC. PSALM president Irene Garcia said during the hearing that if these billions in uncollected receivables remain unpaid, “PSALM will be compelled to contract new borrowings in order to (immediately) liquidate maturing obligations of NPC—a vicious cycle that will result in PSALM absorbing additional interests and other finance charges.”
The amount of P24.56 billion that SPPC owes PSALM would force PSALM to incur annual borrowing costs of more or less P1 billion a year, an amount better spent on social development projects such as classrooms and barangay health centers.
And there's the rub. The presumed Speaker-in-waiting appears reluctant to stick his neck out and tackle these issues as chair of the House energy committee because it would be perceived as conflict of interest on his part. A good move, we might conclude, as he doesn't want to antagonize his patron, but also a bad one as this may show that he's not his own man and public interest could be the least of his priorities as a lawmaker.