Duterte urged to look into death of ERC director Villa

A consumer group is urging President Rodrigo Duterte to look into the death of the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) bidding chair who was forced to commit suicide due to pressure to from his boss, ERC chair and chief executive officer Jose Vicente B. Salazar.

Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas (ABP) said the suicide of Director Francisco Jose Villa Jr. had opened a can of worms on the ERC’s alleged shady deals with favored distribution utilities.

“The commission should be cleansed. It is high time for President Duterte to lick corruption in that government agency,” said ABP secretary general Aya Jallorina in a statement.

The 54-year old ERC executive took his own life on Nov. 9 because he could not handle the pressure for Salazar who wanted him to rig the biddings and favor his boss’ preferred companies.

“My greatest fear in the bids and awards committee is the AVP by Luis Morelos which the chairman and CEO, Jose Vicente B. Salazar, chose through a rigged selection system. That will be a criminal act,” Villa said in a series of suicide notes he wrote three months ago when he started feeling the pressure from Salazar.

His sister, broadcast journalist Charie Villa, said : “Jun was pressured to approve contracts for procurements and hiring consultants without proper bidding and procedure as bids and awards committee chairman.”

Francisco Jose Villa Jr. (Photo courtesy of Charie Villa)

In a statement, Salazar said he viewed “with serious concern and disappointment allegations being hurled against me in the aftermath of the passing away of Director Jun Villa.” He said an “objective body” should look into Villa’s allegations.

Jallorina said it was clear from Villa’s suicide notes that  he was getting depressed over his role in reviewing procurement contracts of power producers and pressure from Salazar to fix the outcome of the biddings.

ABP filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Nov. 8 to stop the ERC from approving Manila Electric Co.’s 20-year supply agreements with seven companies, including firms owned by Meralco’s owner Metro Pacific Group. ABP claimed that these “midnight deals” would burden consumers with an additional P12.44 billion in overpriced power costs every year.

Jallorina said the ERC  was supposed to be the protector of consumers against monopolization and cartelization. But instead, Jallorina said ERC’s actions showed a “conspiracy and presumably, flow of dirty money in exchange of such dubious deals.”