Decorp vs. Mayor Belen

By Ermin Garcia Jr. 

 

THE Dagupan Electric Co. (Decorp) is proving itself to be one confused entity or worse, one easily intimidated in the face of a seeming assault to its integrity as a public utility service provider, inviting more legal problems like a hole in the head in the process.

After maintaining that it has been maliciously named respondent (together with The PUNCH in a libel complaint filed by Citystate Savings Bank), it is tempting another legal suit in its hands, this time from its biggest customer, the city government of Dagupan.  By refusing to comply with Mayor Belen Fernandez’s request to transfer its electric meter from its present location at the MC Adore premises to the market, not only is it breaching its own service contract with the city hall but risks weakening its own legal defense for its manager, Mr. Jojo Liwag, in the libel complaint now being evaluated by a Pasig City prosecutor.

By invoking the libel complaint as the reason for its refusal, Decorp unwittingly (or wittingly?) contradicts Mr. Jojo Liwag’s submitted position that the alleged libelous statement attributed to him as Decorp’s service manager. His statement merely restated the fact that the electric meter in question is registered under Dagupan City government, and nobody was aware that payments were being made by the Citystate branch since it had no meter of its own.

In refusing Mayor Belen’s request, is Decorp now reversing its claim that the city government is the registered customer for that meter? Tsk-tsk.  Poor Mr. Liwag!

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IT’S ABOUT THE PUNCH. Decorp appears to have a woefully wrong take of the libel complaint. The libel complaint is all about the statements published in The PUNCH about Decorp’s billing statements addressed to the city government and not about who has right over the use of the electric meter.

Proof of this is the fact that Citystate, owned by Mr. Antonio Cabangon Chua, chose only to charge me and 7 of The PUNCH’s staff and Mr. Liwag as respondents. The complaint did not include Mayor Belen or any of the department heads at the city hall as a respondent when the alleged libelous statements were clearly attributed to her (and Mr. Liwag). The complaint also did not cite the corporate officers of Decorp who should have been named as well since the complaint made reference to Decorp’s business policy.

Even Mr. Cabangon Chua’s lawyers never claimed the meter was registered in its name and neither did they claim that Citystate had legitimate right over it.

Clearly, the bank’s complaint is aimed at silencing The PUNCH only.  The bank was careful not to get into deeper trouble with either Decorp or the city government by focusing on it’s claim solely that it had been paying for its own consumption even without permission from the city hall to tap power through the latter’s electric meter.  It was a claim that even Citystate did not clarify until it filed the complaint.  Why Decorp’s lawyers failed to see that simple and glaring distinction is beyond anyone.

I am sure that Decorp’s silly insistence that the libel complaint is connected to the city hall’s request for the transfer of the meter must be making Mr. Cabangon Chua’s lawyers rolling on the floor with mocked laughter, completely amused by Decorp’s easy surrender to their application of Sun Tzu’s Art of War!  They had Decorp completely intimidated by their bullying tactics! (But not The PUNCH, Mr. Cabangon Chua’s main target). 

Decorp’s lame offer to install a new meter at the market instead of relocating the electric meter being tapped by the Citystate is proof of that!

Gosh, even Mr. Cabangon Chua himself and his ilk never denied to this day that Citystate bank is operating in the city without a business permit, a building permit and that it does not have a service contract with Decorp! So what is Decorp talking about?

Or is it possible that the rejection was actually a result of a deal made possible by a backroom negotiation between Decorp and the Citystate bank to push the Dagupeños’ government to a corner as others are now inclined to believe? I sincerely hope not.

 

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MULTI-MILLION SUIT. But wait, there is actually a silver lining I see on the horizon for the city hall. On hindsight, the refusal of Decorp to comply with the terms of its service contract with the city government may yet provide the bonanza the city government so desperately sought over the past months.

The city government can and should file a multi-million peso suit against Decorp for shaming and embarrassing the city government and Mayor Belen (as the lawful representative of the city government), before the business community. Decorp obviously did not think twice about rejecting the city mayor not even in consideration of the fact that it was the mayor herself, not just a minor functionary at the city hall that made the request.

Decorp’s failure to invoke a breach in the service contract by the city hall surely did not warrant the rejection and subsequent embarrassment caused the city government and Mayor Belen.  Nothing cold ever justify Decorp’s decision to choose the interests of a non-customer like Citystate over the interests of one of its biggest customers, the city government.

What’s wrong with Decorp? Why did it choose to abandon the city and its people that helped make it profitable through the decades and instead opted to protect the interests of a non-customer?

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SLAP IN THE FACE. Making Mayor Belen at the receiving end of a totally uncalled for rejection is a humiliating slap in the mayor’s and the city government’s faces.

For this alone, Mayor Belen cannot simply turn the other cheek and pretend like it never happened. She must stand up for the city’s interests against a corporate interest that thinks it can conveniently push her and her government around with an alibi that is clearly irrelevant and a non-issue.

It’s understandable to a certain extent if the mayor thinks she can delay legal action against those who plundered the city’s funds during the Lim administration (with her mistaken notion that it is up to the city auditor to file the cases), but this particular rebuke should not be taken lightly. It’s her official authority, representing Dagupeños, that is being directly challenged, not as head of the CSI Group of Companies’. And, since the city is not a party to the libel suit neither does it have any interest in it, Decorp cannot impose its problems on the city if it chooses to be bullied and intimidated.

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MAYOR BELEN’S CHOICE. Decorp’s management was definitely ill advised to think it can embarrass the city mayor before her constituents.  The very least that Decorp can do now is to correct itself by promptly complying with the mayor’s request without much ado and to issue a public apology to the mayor and the people of Dagupan whom she represents.

In the same vein, I hope Mayor Belen would not be inclined to simply turn the other cheek because her rejection was not about her as head of her private company but as representative of the Dagupeños’ government.

Frankly, if Mayor Belen will refuse to make a strong case for the city, I don’t see how she can still be taken seriously by other businessmen from hereon, especially by Mr. Cabangon Chua who already reportedly rejected her proposal for reconciliation of business interests in the city outright.

Will she be a wimpy pushover or a strong willed political leader to contend with? That’s the choice before her, courtesy of Decorp!

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