House leader blasts ERC commissioners
House Deputy Speaker Miro Quimbo chided four commissioners of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for allegedly ganging up on the agency’s current head, while noting their deafening silence when their former chairman was implicated in the multi-billion pork barrel scam.
During Tuesday’s joint hearing of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability and on Energy, Quimbo questioned the four ERC members for assailing ERC Chairman and CEO Jose Vicente Salazar in connection with the suicide of Executive Director Jun Villa in November, 2016. However, he noted that the same officials did not show the same anger when former ERC Chairperson Zenaida Ducut was being investigated in connection with the pork barrel anomalies.
“It seems to me that you are selectively choosing what matters you cry for justice. This makes me feel like there is a deep-seated resentment among the commissioners against the current chairman… like there is a divide,” Quimbo said.
Quimbo referred to Commissioners Josefina Asirit, Gloria Victoria Yap Taruc, Geronimo Sta. Ana, and Alfredo Non who attended the congressional inquiry looking into corruption allegations that supposedly led to the suicide of ERC Director Francisco Jose J, Villa in November, 2016.
The four ERC commissioners spoke of a “cloud of mistrust and fear” and at certain points accused Salazar of conflict of interest and having demanded a stop to an internal inquiry into alleged corruption in the agency.
Quimbo, however, cited their deafening silence when Ducut was being asked by lawmakers both in the House and the Senate to either take a leave of absence or resign from the ERC after being implicated in the 110-billion pork barrel scam allegedly engineered by Janet Lim Napoles.
Quimbo said if the commissioners, who were already with the ERC when Ducut was chairman, were so concerned by allegations of corruption, then why did they not raise any objections to Ducut’s tenure in the ERC and her involvement in the multibillion peso scam?
Salazar was accused by the commissioners of blocking efforts of the ERC board to conduct an investigation into reported procurement irregularities that may have driven Villa to commit suicide last year.
This was gathered during the joint congressional inquiry being conducted on the controversy even as two members of the ERC Bids and Awards Committee confirmed that several procurement deals have indeed failed to go through the public bidding process as required under the law.
The joint House inquiry was sought by Bagong Henerasyon Partylist Rep. Bernadette Herrera Dy.
Dy said the congressional investigation is vital in determining legislative action to be taken as a result of Villa’s exposé of ERC procurement irregularities that was contained in his suicide note.
During the hearing presided by Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, four members of the five-man commission said they agreed to conduct a formal inquiry into Villa’s death considering that all of them were dragged into the controversy although “only one person is actually under fire,” referring to Salazar.