Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Beleaguered officials of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) are still hoping for a meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte, in the hopes he doesn’t follow through on threats to abolish the agency amid allegations of corruption.
“We have made formal and informal requests for a meeting with the President, but so far there is no date yet,” ERC Spokesperson Rexie Digal said in an interview on Thursday.
Digal stressed the ERC was taking the President’s warnings seriously but officials have not heeded calls to resign. She said they could explain the “full picture of developments” to Duterte if given a chance.
When asked whether ERC Chair and CEO Jose Salazar could assure the President that the agency followed due process in public biddings, Digal said, “Yes.”
In a separate statement, Salazar also said he was “confident” that a meeting would “result in clearer directions… regarding the issues facing the ERC.”
Read: Ordered to resign, ERC chief seeks meeting with Duterte
Officials didn’t elaborate, however, on what they would do if Duterte refused to grant them an audience. The President himself has said he would abolish the ERC if the officials didn’t resign.
“We don’t want to second-guess what will happen,” Digal said.
She just warned that scrapping the agency would have far-reaching consequences, especially to consumers.
“The ERC is responsible for setting the rates for electricity, implementing the standards for the provision of electricity, and basically regulating the entire industry,” she said.
The ERC has come under fire after its Director, Jun Villa, committed suicide early this month. In a series of notes, Villa – who chaired the ERC’s bids and awards committee – said was being pressured to rig the selection process for various projects.
Read: Duterte orders ERC commissioners to resign following officer’s death, alleged corruption
In one letter, Villa claimed a certain Luis Morelos had been handpicked to bag a project to produce an audio-visual (AVP) presentation for the ERC, even though the bidding had failed twice.
He tagged no less than Salazar, the ERC chief, as the one behind the rigging.
In another letter, Villa also mentioned “Iloilo contracts” that a certain “E.D.” had signed for. No other details were available.
The ERC has vowed to fully cooperate with all investigations, even requesting the Commission on Audit to conduct a probe on the contested AVP deal.
According to Digal, the National Bureau of Investigation has begun its own investigation, interviewing some ERC staff in the previous days.
Legislators from both the House of Representatives and the Senate have also vowed to launch their own inquiries, not just into the ERC, but also into the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 which created it.
Nevertheless, ERC officials said the AVP project was never awarded and claimed Morelos didn’t even participate in the bids.
Salazar assured Villa only managed the bids for smaller, internal projects, typically to procure goods and services for the agency.
Contrary to reports, the director was not involved in much larger contracts like “power supply agreements between distribution utilities/electric cooperatives and generation companies,” Salazar said.
