Punchline
Who will protect Decorp’s customers?
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THE PUNCH has not received any response from the Dagupan Electric Corporation to our text query whether it plans to refund overpayments made by its customers for the overstated generation charges made in December 2013 and January 2014.
Note that Energy Regulatory Commission has ruled that the generation charge passed on to customers by Meralco was overstated. The same charge was passed on by electric cooperatives and Decorp.
Panelco III, when asked by the provincial board whether it would act accordingly and comply with the ruling of ERC, readily replied in the positive: it would refund the overpayments to its customers.
Curiously in Dagupan City, the members Dagupan sanggunian have not demonstrated any concern or indication they would protect the interests of their constituents. Not one councilor has filed a resolution to make Decorp account for the overpayments made mostly by Dagupeños.
The overpayments would easily run in the millions, and if not refunded to the customers, that money would be made part of the dividends to Decorp’s stockholders. What an easy way to earn undeserved profits. All it takes is to have an indifferent city council that would not lift a finger for the city’s residents.
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WHO’S NOT AFRAID? Speaking of Decorp, now that the libel complaint filed by Citystate Bank against Decorp’s Mr. Jojo Liwag has been dropped, he has no more reason to side-step Mayor Belen Fernandez’s order for the electric meter at the MC Adore assigned to the city government be disconnected and the account terminated.
It will be recalled that Decorp cited the libel case like the Damocles’ sword hanging over its head, as the alibi to suspend any action on the order of the city government.
To continue to ignore the mayor today can only be construed now as a complete rejection of the authority of the local government over its operations.
On the part of the city government, Mayor Fernandez, who I am told is personally averse to legal confrontations, must remember that she cannot allow to subordinate her office’s authority to that of her personal preferences in life. She has a duty to protect the integrity of her office as chief executive. She or any other mayor in the future cannot and should not allow the authority of the city mayor to be ignored by any individual or group.
At the very least, the mayor should issue a demand letter to Decorp to comply with her order, representing the interests of the city, or face legal sanctions. Then depending on the response, she should follow through or she will be never be believed again! Worse, nobody will fear crossing her.
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CITYSTATE BANK’S CAKE. If you want a living example of what “having your cake and eating it too” means today, that is no other than the Dagupan branch of the Citystate Savings Bank owned by businessman Antonio Cabangon Chua, owner of Eternal Garden, Orchids Hotel, Music Warehouse and Fortune Insurance in the city.
The bank continues to operate without being issued both a building permit and a business permit for two consecutive years now. Sure, it’s illegal but it is operating nonetheless. How’s that for having your cake?
Then, Mr. Cabangon Chua’s group took advantage of the anemic legal response of the city government to their violations and quickly turned the table on Mayor Fernandez, City Engr. Virginia Rosario and Treasure Romelita Alcantara (whom we inadvertently named as Tessie Alcantara in our last issue. My apologies to her and to those named Tessie). All three are now facing graft charges before the Ombudsman, when it is they who should be making Mr. Cabangon Chua account to the court for his bank’s violations!
But before Mr. Cabangon Chua gets carried away by his legal offensive, he and his lawyer Atty. Ferdie Topacio ought to know that there is a precedent in the case of Engr. Rosario. She was upheld and acquitted by the Ombudsman when charged for refusing to grant Metrostate Realty a building permit.
In this instance, the mayor and Engr. Rosario refused to issue the permit owing to the pendency of determination of ownership of the MC Adore building by the court. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in Mr. Cabangon Chua’s favor seeking the change in venue of the case involving MC Adore, transferring the case to Quezon City, the issue of ownership will remain unsettled for even a longer time. Translation: the bank will continue to operate without having to bother with a building permit and not pay its business taxes to the city.
Yes, the bank will have its cake and eat it too until ownership is determined. No need for a building permit, No need for a business permit.
Now you know what that idiomatic phrase means!
Of course, that can change overnight if Mayor Belen decides to turn the table on Mr. Cabangon Chua as well. How? That’s her business to know. Secret!
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THE “ADVISER.” Whoever planted in Mayor Belen’s mind that the fish pen owners are a bunch of well-meaning people of integrity who deserve to be allowed to reap their modest profits from their fish pen operations ought to be hung upside down in the city plaza as the Italians had done to Mussolini.
The mayor in her kind soul, was made not only to listen to the pleas of the pen owners with ardent promises to voluntarily dismantle their pens on agreed deadline but was even made to give the claims of land (river) ownership the benefit of the doubt. Her “adviser” completely misled the mayor into believing that the pen owners were given the benefit of the doubt by her predecessor and therefore, there could be some truth to the pen owners’ claims. What a slimy hogwash!
What was not told Mayor Belen was the fact that the ownership yarn was only hatched to justify and cover-up the sudden proliferation of fish pens in the city’s rivers and tributaries. Why Mayor Belen bought that hook line and sinker is beyond me.
Anyway, Mayor Belen found out the hard way that not one of the “respectable pen owners who won an extended deadline” cared about fulfilling their promises to her. They did not dismantle their pens as promised and left it to the mayor to demolish their pens at the city’s expense! Worse, they even attempted to restock their pens in the belief that they can still make her swallow their lies but fortunately they were found out in time, and Mayor Belen finally put her foot down.
Is it possible they thought the Dagupan City mayor is such a pushover? Hmmm.
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