The Energy Regulatory Commission proposed four sets of amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 that will help address its pending backlog of around 6,000 cases.
ERC commissioner Floresinda Digal said during the Senate committee hearing Thursday that of the total pending cases, 3,000 were filed by different regulated entities.
“The other half is a result of our monitoring and enforcement of powers, which is a result of show cause orders that we have issued to erring stakeholders. So for us, we would like to ask support for the EPIRA amendments that would give authority to the Energy Regulatory Commission to undertake further restructuring and reorganization of the agency,” Digal said.
Digal said that aside from giving authority to the ERC to undertake periodic restructuring and reorganization of the agency, the EPIRA should provide clarity and expressed language on the permitting and quasi-judicial functions of the regulator.
Digal said that as of now, even applications for certificate of compliance or COC by power generating companies are elevated to the five-man commission en banc.
“But recently we have adopted an adhoc committee composed only of three commissioners with whom the COC applications will be evaluated, and then the COC itself gets signed by the chair so that it cuts layers of work,” Digal said.
She said the ERC is also proposing a limited fiscal autonomy that would allow the commission to retain a portion of its income for certain purposes such as capital outlay, training and innovation initiatives – all of which are aimed at ensuring diligent agility of the regulator in regulating a dynamic and evolving industry.
“We lose our staff to the industry that we are regulating because they offer better salaries and benefits. We are exempted from the salary, standardization law. However, we are not able to fully, at least, take advantage of the EPIRA provision that allows us to annually submit adjusted rate or salary compensation level for our staff. We were not able to enjoy the annual adjustment,” Digal said.
