The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) admitted issuing a resolution allowing the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to pass on its 3-percent franchise tax to consumers, prompting a lawmaker to seek legal accountability against the regulating body for allowing it.
During the hearing of the House Committee on Ways and Means chaired by Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay, ERC chair Monalisa Dimalanta disclosed that the body approved NGCP’s petition in 2011 and suspended it only in 2023.
Dimalanta clarified that the ERC cannot issue a refund order as the Commission was the one that issued the directive, and NGCP merely complied with it.
For his part, APEC (Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives) party-list Rep. Sergio Dagooc said ERC officials who approved NGCP’s petition to pass on the 3-percent franchise tax to consumers must be held accountable.
“What is the possible legal accountability on the part of the body that approved the resolution authorizing NGCP to pass on the 3 percent franchise tax to consumers?” Dagooc asked.
Dagooc also took the cudgels up for NGCP from any responsibility, stressing that the grid operator merely acted based on the ERC resolution issued in 2011.
“They wouldn’t pass that without the resolution, if the regulator didn’t allow them,” he pointed out in Tagalog.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), through Commissioner, lawyer Romeo Lumagui Jr echoed Dagooc’s statement that NGCP should not be blamed for the tax dispute, saying it religiously pays the 3-percent franchise tax mandated by law.
Dimalanta added that from 2018, NGCP paid between P1.3 billion and P1.5 billion in franchise tax every year. She added that NGCP paid a total of P21 billion in franchise tax from 2016 to 2022.
ERC liable for allowing NGCP to pass on franchise tax to consumers—solon
