Procedurally illegal

Ruffy Magbanua

A VOLUNTEER watchdog in the campaign against corruption in government has called for a Senate inquiry on the reported irregularities spawned by the conjugal greed of the Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

The complaint stemmed from the ERC approval on the rate application of the NGCP Malita-Matanao 230-kv transmission line project which was earlier classified as connection asset.

But for obviously selfish reason, it became a transmission asset, a maneuver done procedurally illegal at the expense of Mindanao power consumers.

The group, called the Crusade for Clean Government, felt that the power consumers in Mindanao has been short-changed and unjustly victimized of corrupt practices in the power transmission projects implemented by NGCP.

Correspondingly, NGCP filed the rate application with the insertion of the 50-mva step-down transformer with the intention to recover and collect a staggering P2.3 billion in transmission charges from the Mindanao power consumers.

The Crusade for Clean Government also found out that for the third regulatory period, the NGCP, as part of its amended transmission development plan, had acted on bad faith and openly abused its discretion by integrating the Malita-Matanao 230-kv transmission line project which was originally a connection asset but was diverted into a transmission facility.

The complaint, filed July 17, 2017 to both Speaker of the House and Senate President, copy furnished Malacanang, branded the conduct unbecoming of NGCP with prejudice to the best interest of the power consumers in Mindanao.

Instead of an ERC service agreement, NGCP maneuvered intentionally  with the objective to recover the Capex and revenue requirement of the project by filing the rate application.

NGCP’s  filing of the rate application further violated the rules of practice and procedure of the ERC with utmost disregard on the submission of ultimate facts at hand.

The complaint further states of the grave abuse of discretion of the ERC by extending preferential accommodation to San Miguel Consolidated Power Corp. on the implementation of the Malita-Matanao 230-kv transmission line project resulting in fraud, disadvantage, inconvenience and losses to the following premises:

1. Exercise of the power of eminent domain on the inapplicability of the Malita-Matanao 230 Kv transmission line project to be a transmission asset;
2. Implementation of Malita – Matanao 230 Kv transmission line project despite non-compliance on network, operational and security criteria of the Philippine Grid Code, particularly the non-compliance of N-1 contingency, resulting to a possible Mindanao-wide system disturbance when the SMCPC unit no. 2 goes online;
3. Consenting to financial losses burdened by existing generating plants during the implementation of System Integration Protection Scheme, a contingency measure to temporary resolve the non-compliance of N-1 contingency, wherein automatic load dropping will be enforced by NGCP as the system operator, in any breach on the single line outage scenario, particularly the Davao-Toril 138 Kv T/L section, which would result to force the existing generating plants to reduce its generating capacity that may translate to financial losses;
4. Voluntary exposing the Mindanao transmission system to security risks because of the non-compliance of N-1 contingency for a long duration starting this year up to 2019 due to the latest reconfiguration of the Mindanao transmission system, with the addition of Malita-Matanao 230-kv T/L and two units of SMCPC coal plant; and
5. Imminent and potential exposure of the Mindanao transmission system to an island-wide blackout which could intensify the security risks not only for davao region, but for the whole island of Mindanao.

E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com