House passes Meralco franchise renewal bill on 3rd reading
VOTING 186 against seven with four abstentions, the House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading House Bill (HB) No. 10926 that seeks to provide a new 25-year franchise to power distribution giant, the Manila Electric Co.(Meralco), under Republic Act (RA) No. 9209.
RA 9209 granted Meralco a franchise to construct, operate and maintain a distribution system for the conveyance of electric power to the end users in the cities and municipalities of Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite and Rizal, and certain cities/municipalities/barangays in Batangas, Laguna, Quezon and Pampanga.
The bill seeks to mandate Meralco to operate and maintain in superior manner all distribution facilities, lines and systems for electric services, and to modify, improve and change such facilities or systems in such manner and to such extent as the progress in science or technology and improvements or innovations in the electric power services may render reasonable and proper as may be required by the Energy Regulatory Commission or the Department of Energy.
Under the bill, Meralco shall submit an annual report of its operations and finances to the Congress of the Philippines through the Committee on Legislative Franchises of the House of Representatives and the Committee of Public Services of the Senate on its compliance of the terms and conditions of the franchise on its operations on or before April 30 of every year after the effectivity of the Act.
The reportorial compliance certificate issued by the Congress shall be required before any application for permit or certificate is accepted by the ERC.
Among the authors of the bill are Reps. Joey Sarte Salceda, Gus Tambunting, Rufus Rodriguez, Lord Allan Velasco, Kristine Singson-Meehan, Mercedes Alvarez, Marcelino Libanan and Johnny Ty-Pimentel.
“I expect quick passage in the Senate and perhaps even no bicam. MERALCO is an exemplar of how service reliability can create economic growth and development. Using estimates from the PSA input-output t tables and data from the ERC on outages due to power supply by distribution utilities, the country would gain a net gross value added of P204.29 billion every year if all its coops and utilities performed like Meralco,” Salceda said.
“This is the fruit of some P220 billion MERALCO invested in reducing systems losses and system interruptions. No wonder as many as 40 localities have asked MERALCO to cover them.
MERALCO has also fully complied with the ERC’s rules and issuances. Some P48.3 billion in consumer refunds have also been delivered in full. As I repeatedly assert, the role of the franchise review process in Congress is to see whether a grantee has complied with its mandates. In this regard, there can be little question. MERALCO has fulfilled its end of the current franchise law,” Salceda said.
The measure was a consolidation of HB Nos. 9793, 9813, and 10317–all of which sought an early extension to Meralco’s franchise, which won’t expire until 2028.
Meralco, the country’s largest power distributor, mainly services the National Capital Region (NCR), which accounts for more than half of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
