Efren L. Danao
Manila Times

The government, not the Lopezes, is the rightful owner of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said Tuesday.

Enrile said former President Corazon Aquino gave Meralco to the Lopezes for free, even if the government had expanded its franchise and upgraded its facilities. He maintained that since the Lopez family did not pay the government anything for getting Meralco, the government could still claim ownership of the utility firm.

“It is up to the government whether it wants to get back Meralco,” Enrile said when asked what should be the next step if the government really still owns the utility.

He added that Eugenio Lopez and his brother, former Vice President Fernando Lopez, went to then-President Ferdinand Marcos in 1973 because Meralco Securities Co. that they had owned was in precarious condition with about P101 million in principal and interest that was past due.

“That’s why the Lopezes were hard put in looking for somebody who could bail them out,” Enrile explained.

He added that the Lopez brothers had written a letter to Marcos offering to sell Meralco to a cooperative composed of its employees, end-users and the government. Enrile, however, could not say how much the Lopezes were paid for their share, but he cited a P200-million loan secured by the new owners, Meralco Foundation, from the Development Bank of the Philippines for payment.

“At the start, the customers had participation certificates that entitled them to Meralco dividends. When Cory [ex-President Aquino’s nickname] gave Meralco to the Lopezes, these certificates were forgotten,” he said.

Sen. Joker Arroyo, the Executive Secretary during the Aquino administration, said there was no documentation on the return of Meralco to the Lopezes.

“It was done verbally,” Senator Arroyo added. He argued that the Lopez family yielded its ownership of Meralco under duress during the martial-law regime of Marcos.

Enrile, who held various Cabinet positions under Marcos, denied that the Lopezes were forced to give up Meralco. The Lopez family has been claiming that it was forced to give up the power firm as well as its other companies because the martial-law regime was holding Eugenio Lopez Jr. hostage.

“That is not true. Geny [Eugenio’s nickname] Lopez was arrested because he was involved in a plot to assassinate Marcos after the 1969 elections,” Enrile also claimed.

He said that everything that he was saying could be found also in a notarized statement of former Meralco officials Emilio Abello and Senen Gabaldon. Abello and Gabaldon gave the statement on February 27, 1975 in answer to a claim of the Lopezes’ lawyer Gerard Hill of San Francisco, California, that Marcos grabbed Meralco.

He and the other senators apparently recognized Meralco as still Lopez-owned during the start of the hearings on Monday on charges against the Lopezes’ alleged mismanagement of the utility, as shown by its alleged price-gouging.

Sen. Edgardo Angara also on Tuesday said Meralco should return to consumers through billing credits what they had been wrongfully charged with.

“For instance, I don’t think consumers should pay for the power consumption of Meralco offices. Meralco not only got its power for free [but] it also charged its consumers for power that they did not use. Meralco should refund them this,” he added.

Meralco had admitted at the hearing of the Joint Congressional Power Commission (PowerCom) that it had been passing on to end-users about 72 million kilowatt-hours costing about P427.5 million that its offices had been consuming every year.

Angara said Meralco also should not pass on to its consumers its franchise tax.

“System loss [stolen electricity] should be limited to only 4.5 percent. Anything beyond that, Meralco should assume and not pass on to consumers,” he added.

Angara, however, refused to blame Meralco alone for the high power rates in the country.

“The Energy Regulatory Commission is also to blame. It is supposed to be a regulatory body but it seems those supposed to be regulated are dictating what it should do,” he said. “We are also to blame for passing the Electric Power Industry Reform Act that has caused many of these problems.”