Iloilo RTC suspends MORE’s expropriation case vs. PECO assets

The Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Iloilo has suspended proceedings in the expropriation case filed by MORE Electric and Power Corp. to take over the facilities of Panay Electric Company Inc. (PECO), Panay Electric said Monday.

RTC Branch 35 Presiding Judge Daniel Antonio Amular issued the suspension order through a decision dated November 18, 2019.

“(T)he Court resolved to suspend further proceedings in this case in the interest of judicial fairness, respect to the Honorable Supreme Court, and for practicable reasons,” the decision read.

A copy of the decision was forwarded to reporters by PECO.

GMA News Online has contacted MORE for a statement, but no response has been received as of this posting.

MORE and PECO are locked in legal battle after a Republic Act granted Enrique Razon-owned MORE the franchise to operate an electric distribution utility in Iloilo City.

This development coincided with the franchise expiration of PECO, Iloilo City’s sole power distributor. An application is now pending before Congress.

0PECO has since asserted that the wholesale turnover of its assets to MORE, by way of expropriation, was unconstitutional.

In its decision, the Iloilo RTC deferred to the Supreme Court over the proceedings of the expropriation case.

“We are glad that the RTC of Iloilo has deferred to the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land,” said Marcelo Cacho, head of Public Engagement and Government Affairs at PECO.

“We cannot but agree with the Honorable Judge Amular that the issue of constitutionality of the expropriation has to be resolved first,” he added.

Earlier this month, PECO closed the doors to any possibility of selling its assets to rival MORE.

PECO also claimed that the two successive days of power outages in its service area on October 29 and 30 could have been the work of sabotage. —Jon Viktor Cabuenas/VDS, GMA News