ON September 5, Ombudsman Samuel Martires ordered the "preventive suspension" of Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) Chairman Monalisa Dimalanta for six months, having found, he said, that "the evidence on record shows that the guilt of respondent is strong and that the charges of grave misconduct, grave abuse of authority, gross neglect of duty [and] conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service may warrant her removal from office." This conclusion on the part of the Ombudsman was grossly in error, and the evidence on record shows that it was, at best, the result of exceedingly sloppy work that will have damaging consequences for the stability and price of the nation's electricity supply.
There is also troubling irregularity in the issuance of the Ombudsman's order, which was dated August 20 but only formally issued on September 5. According to ERC Chairman Dimalanta, as of the morning of Thursday, September 12, fully a week after the suspension order was made public and forwarded to the office of the executive secretary, the Ombudsman had not yet provided her or her attorneys a copy of the complaint against her — something that is a fundamental right of anyone accused in a case in court at any level. This was disclosed by Dimalanta in an interview with Karen Davila on ANC's "Headstart" program on Thursday and later confirmed in a text message to The Manila Times when we reached out to Dimalanta for clarification.
Dimalanta also told The Manila Times that the basis of the suspension as stated in the Ombudsman's order had been properly resolved by the commission on August 21, more than two weeks before the order was released. In the order, the specific violation described was the ERC's failure to act on five petitions filed before the commission by the National Association of Electricity Consumers (Nasecore) in 2023 in connection with the rate rebasing process for electricity distributor Meralco; three of the petitions demanded audits of Meralco or the production of certain documents, while the remaining two, filed a few days later, were simply demands that the other petitions be heard.
The resolution of the cited complaint did, in fact, occur a day after the Ombudsman's order was signed, but as he did not deign to release it for nearly three more weeks, the ERC could not have known of its existence or acted upon it. Again, this simply shows sloppiness on the part of the Office of the Ombudsman; it would have taken just a simple phone call to determine whether or not the basis for the suspension order was still valid before its release.
While the ERC can function normally on a day-to-day basis without its chairman, several important matters have been put on hold as a result of her suspension, as only the chairman can call meetings of the full five-member commission to decide on petitions and applications. These include rate-setting for the upcoming green energy auctions of the Department of Energy; numerous applications for approval of power supply agreements (PSAs) for electric cooperatives and distribution utilities; and of course, the rate-rebasing process that was the basis of Nasecore's complaint to the Ombudsman. The irony that complaining to the Ombudsman about the ERC's delay in completing that complicated exercise would only cause additional delay has evidently flown over the heads of the self-appointed "consumer advocacy" group.
The forced suspension of the important work described above will impose an immediate cost on consumers as well, in the case of the PSAs; without those being approved, the distributors affected will have to resort to buying electricity on the higher-priced spot market, resulting in higher electric bills for their customers.
Immediately after the Ombudsman's order was released, numerous business and energy industry groups issued public statements politely condemning the decision, affirming their hearty support for Dimalanta and the progress the ERC has made under her watch, and calling on the Ombudsman to swiftly resolve the case. We wholeheartedly agree with those sentiments and likewise demand that Ombudsman Martires act immediately to correct his grievous error, which has accomplished nothing but to badly damage the public trust and confidence in his own office.