PECO vows to exhaust legal remedies vs. MORE’s ‘illegal takeover’ of power distribution assets

Iloilo City's longtime power distributor has urged the Court of Appeals (CA) to stop the "illegal takeover" of its assets by a company owned by billionaire Enrique Razon, saying it was prepared to take all available legal remedies.

The Panay Electric Company (PECO) on Tuesday filed a supplemental petition to its existing request for the CA to nullify three Iloilo court orders that paved the way for MORE Electric Power Corp.'s alleged "forcible, deceptive and intimidating" takeover of its stations and facilities over the weekend.

At a press conference, PECO’s legal counsel Estrella Elamparo said PECO asked the CA to issue a temporary restraining order stopping the continued implementation of an Iloilo court-issued writ of possession, as well as a status quo ante order that would "restore" its possession of the substations and other properties that it claims were illegally seized by MORE.

“Definitely, it is not yet over. We are taking all the remedies that we could,” Elamparo said as she assailed MORE’s immediate implementation of the court’s writ of possession being a preemptive action.

“If you try to preempt a TRO it is bad faith. What should happen is that the situation should be reverted before their act of preempting happened,” Elamparo explained.

PECO is Iloilo City's power distributor of 95 years, but MORE was granted a franchise in 2019, prompting PECO to go to court and question provisions in MORE's franchise that would supposedly allow the Razon-owned firm to expropriate its assets.

After being declared unconstitutional by a Mandaluyong court, these provisions are now the subject of a pending case in the Supreme Court (SC). But PECO claims MORE initiated expropriation proceedings in Iloilo even despite the pendency of the SC case.

In its original CA petition filed last week, PECO questioned three orders by the Iloilo Regional Trial Court: one that denied its motion to dismiss the expropriation case, another that granted MORE's application for a writ of possession, and another that reinstated the grant of the writ.

PECO said these orders were issued with grave abuse of discretion and resulted in a "blatant violation" of its rights.

Estrella Elamparo, PECO's lawyer, said the expropriation case has passed through six local judges due to a number of inhibitions and is now before the sala of Judge Emerald Requina-Contreras.

The company claims she granted MORE a writ of possession without lifting the suspension of proceedings that another judge had put in place last November.

PECO told the CA that the writ of possession was hastily and forcibly implemented, adding that they were not informed that the order had been issued until the day MORE attempted to implement the writ.

"The forcible, deceptive and intimidating wresting of control and possession over petitioner’s stations, together with all the facilities and assets therein, were done almost simultaneously, and notably, with full complement of armed policemen, security guards, court sheriffs, and other thug-looking civilians," PECO said in its supplemental filing.

In its original petition, the long-time power distributor said MORE does not have the required Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) from the Energy Regulatory Commission.

PECO claimed it has been granted a provisional CPCN "to ensure the uninterrupted supply of electricity in Iloilo City."

"Indeed, the prudent course of action would have been to maintain the suspension of the expropriation proceedings until the Supreme Court, before whom the issue of constitutionality has been submitted, resolves with finality the prejudicial question," PECO said.

"It is regrettable that public respondent chose to gamble with the rights of petitioner," it added.

A congressman has already urged President Rodrigo Duterte to intervene in the Iloilo power distribution row between the two companies. — MDM, GMA News