Speaker says House to study possible abolition of ERC

House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has asked the House energy committee to study the possibility of abolishing the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) amid allegations of corruption within the agency.

"Pinag-aaralan na namin 'yan. I already advised the committee para tingnan yun paano natin ia-address 'yung problema sa ERC," Alvarez told reporters late Tuesday.

He was commenting on President Rodrigo Duterte’s threat to abolish the ERC after its executives refused to heed his call for them to resign.

Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco, the energy committee chair,  said the panel will soon launch its investigation on the alleged corruption within the ERC.

"We definitely need to study if there's truth to these allegations of anomalies because this goes into the very matter of ERC's role in the power sector," he said Wednesday.

Based on the results of its probe, Velasco said the committee will determine whether the ERC should be abolished or if amendments would have to be made to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) law, which created the agency to institute safeguards against corruption.

Duterte had asked top officials of the ERC to resign after the suicide of lawyer Francisco Villa Jr., chief of the agency’s bids and awards committee, last Nov. 9.

Villa disclosed the supposed corruption within the agency in notes he wrote before he committed suicide.

When the ERC executives refused to quit, Duterte said he would just abolish the agency.

"You can stay there forever," Duterte said last Nov. 23. "We will abolish the office." —KBK, GMA News