THE San Miguel Corp. (SMC) is the biggest and richest business enterprise in the Philippines. It regularly collects P1 trillion or more in annual revenues, has a dominant market position in food and beverage, and is a leading player in the construction, tollways, cement, packaging and electricity generation sectors. SMC is by no stretch of the imagination a disadvantaged company that requires the protection of special exceptions to regulations, the terms of legal contracts, or personal intercession on the part of the President of the Republic in order to survive.

Yet that is exactly the case that SMC — along with intelligent, skilled journalists at a couple of media outlets who ought to know better — has been trying to make ever since its presumption that it could act at will was checked by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) at the end of September.