Meralco defends own gencos in power supply bid

Publicly listed Manila Electric Co. on Thursday defended the right to include its own generation company (gencos) subsidiaries and affiliates in bidding for power supply agreements (PSAs), noting there is no law against it.

“We would like to take strong exception to the very unfair statement of Mr. Colmenares and Congressman Zarate against Meralco,” the company said in a statement sent by its spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga via mobile message.

Bayan Muna party-list Chairman Neri Colmenares and Representative Carlos Zarate said Thursday that Meralco should exclude its gencos from bidding to assure consumers that they are getting the least cost of electricity from power suppliers.

In a statement earlier on Thursday, Colmenares claimed that Meralco gencos are the same as those that have been discredited after negotiated PSAs were exposed in an earlier congressional inquiry that found that overpriced charges were passed on to consumers.

“There is no factual nor legal basis for their statements against Meralco, and that these statements are obviously meant to discriminate against Meralco and its affiliates in participating in the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) that Meralco is currently undertaking in compliance with the recent Supreme Court decision and Department of Energy pronouncements,” said Zaldarriaga.

“There is no prohibition in the law, the DOE guidelines and even in the SC decision that prevent affiliate generation companies from participating in the bidding for power supply requirements of distribution companies,” Zaldarriaga emphasized.

According to Meralco, it is being singled out as Bayan Muna did not give any attention to other PSAs filed during the same period and had been implemented without public bidding.

“Their continuing tirade against Meralco is clearly aimed at stopping the construction of new power plants that the country critically needs to put the DOE and the administration of President Duterte in a bad light,” Zaldarriaga noted.

"Meralco would like to assure its customers that the Competitive Selection Process … conforms to all existing laws, rules and regulations and that the same is being done to ensure adequate, reliable and quality power supply as required under the EPIRA law,” he added.

Meralco ended the first quarter of the year with a net income of P5.67 billion, up by 7% from P5.31 billion in the same period in 2018. —VDS, GMA News