Appeals court nixes advocacy group case vs ERC

FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Court of Appeals nixed the bid of advocacy group Foundation for Economic Freedom seeking to stop the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) from hearing and deciding on the petition filed by the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) for an increase on electricity bills of consumers.

In a 20-page decision, the appeals court’s Special 16th division through Associate Justice Pedro Corales said  FEF’s petition  should be dismissed for being moot and academic because the ERC had already ruled on NREB’s petition last Oct. 3, 2011 and Nov. 10, 2011.

But still, the appeals court believed it important to still rule on FEF’s arguments on whether or not the ERC committed grave abuse of discretion in approving NREB’s petition.

“In this case, the orders rendered by the ERC were pursuant to its rule-making power, thus, an exercise of quasi-legislative function,” the appeals court said.

The case stemmed when the NREB filed the petition with the ERC on behalf of the renewable energy (RE) suppliers to create rules for the adoption of the feed-in-tariff (FIT) for electricity generated from biomass, ocean, run-off-river hydropower, solar and wind energy resources.

The FIT system provides for a collection of tax from electric consumers nationwide for a period of 20 years to generate money for a subsidy and guaranteed return on investments to all renewable energy providers for their projects on renewable energy resources in the country.

The FEF claimed that the taxes from electric consumers nationwide would reach P11 billion annually for the next 20 years collectible through their monthly billings.

The establishment of FIT system is mandated under the Republic Act 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act (REA) in order to encourage investors to build clean energy power plants that will supply energy to the grid.

Under the same law, the ERC is tasked to issue the rules and regulations on how to determine the FIT of all RE resource providers as well as to hear and fix the said the FIT to be proposed by the NREB.

The FEF, when it took the case to the appeals court said the ERC committed grave abuse of discretion when it refused to dismiss NREB’s petition despite the board’s failure to comply with the requirement under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 and Section 4, Rule 13 of the ERC Rules which mandates the Notice of Proposed Rule-Making be published at least twice for two consecutive weeks in two newspapers of nationwide circulation.

But, the appeals court said the FEF failed to prove that there was a grave abuse of discretion on the part of the ERC in approving NREB’s petition.

It added that it is also a well-established rule that Courts should respect the interpretation by administrative agencies of their own rules and regulations since they are in the best position to do so in those areas coming within their special and technical expertise.

The appeals court also did not give merit to FEF’s claim that NREB’s petition should have been dismissed for being premature.

Concurring with the ruling were Associate Justices Sesinando Villon and Samuel Gaerlan.

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