Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has banned National Transmission Corp. president Melvin Matibag from attending hearings on the 2021 budget of the Department of Energy and its attached agencies and government corporations.
In a letter to Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, Gatchalian adverted to the October 21 hearing in which Matibag was declared out or order and removed after he called Senator Manny Pacquiao’s questions politically motivated.
“Any abusive, offensive, or otherwise improper speech or behavior will not be tolerated,” Gatchalian said.
“As such, until Atty. Matibag is able to behave in a professional manner, I am constrained to prohibit his attendance to the remaining hearings of he Committee on Finance,” he added.
Pacquiao on Thursday presented before Gatchalian’s hearing of the proposed DOE budget a video questioning the department’s engagement with private company—Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).
He said the DOE had given EIMOP the power to become an independent electricity stock market operator even though its background did not meet the requirements set by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 and the firm only had P7,000 paid-up capital.
Pacquiao linked Matibag to the issue saying the TRANSCO official’s wife Ma. Rene Ann Lourdes Matibag was an incorporator of EIMOP.
Matibag’s fraternity brother Richard Nethercott also allegedly sat as IEMOP president and CEO.
“Kailangan ko lang malaman anong meron ang EIMOP bakit kinuha ito e hindi ito pumapasa sa qualification ng EPIRA Law at ang EIMOP ang isa sa board ng IEMOP is ang asawa ni Atty. Matibag,” Pacquiao said.
Matibag asked Pacquiao why he was being linked to IEMOP when TRANSCO was no longer connected to the questioned firm after the takeover of Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC).
“Alam ninyo let’s call a spade a spade dito sa hearing na ito, this is all political, Senator Pacquiao. Alam naman natin na ito ang pinapasabi mo bago ka umalis e, nu’ng umalis ka na sinasabi mong mayroon kang pasabog,” Matibag said.
Gatchalian said Matibag was out of order and had the TRANSCO removed from the hearing.
Cusi and Matibag belong to one faction of the ruling PDP-Laban, which fielded senators Ronald Dela Rosa and Bong Go as standard bearer and vice presidential candidate respectively in Eleksyon 2022.
Pacquiao and Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, the son of the late party founder Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., belong to the other wing of the party.
The party intramurals is now the subject of deliberations by the Commission of Elections.
“I would like to remind all the representatives of the Department and all its attached agencies, including TRANSCO, to conduct themselves with courtesy towards all attendees of Senate hearings and inquiries including the Chairperson, other senators present, all all other guests and resource persons and to give respect to the Senate as an institution,” Gatchalian said in his letter to Cusi.
In a letter to Gatchalian, Matibag said the issues raised by Pacquiao were the same information which were used against him in 2019 at the House of Representatives due to his stand on certain energy issues.
“These are now being recycled by Senator Pacquiao with the budget hearing as his venue,” Matibag said.
“My actions were a righteous indignation on my part as I strongly felt that there was an abuse of legislative privilege by Senator Pacquiao,” he added.
In a separate letter, Cusi told Gatchalian that the DOE recognized the prerogative of the committee to conduct hearings but added that the department thought that the panel had been used as a “platform to advocate certain political interests.”
Cusi lamented that the issues raised in the budget deliberation seemed to portray the DOE as “perpetrator of fraud” as the Philippine Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) was concerned.
“The accusations hurled against the DOE and other entities, especially those included in the video that accompanied Senator Pacquiao’s opening statement, were malicious and full of inaccuracies if not outright lies, and were obviously intended solely to malign personalities therein,” Cusi said.
“It is unfair that most of these personalities were not given the chance to be heard, since they were not present during the hearing,” he added. -NB, GMA News
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