The Energy Regulatory Commission or, ERC, is keeping an eye on an ongoing competitive selection process or CSP for the 1,800 megawatts or MW baseload capacity gap in preparation for the peak summer demand to avoid anti-competitive practices.

CSP is the process of competitive bidding held for electricity supply contracts among distribution firms.

No other than ERC Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta affirmed at a recent House Committee on Legislative hearing.

In franchise hearings last week, Meralco was reportedly instructed to avoid "unduly limiting" the number of potential bidders allowed to join the process.

Responding to the issue, Meralco VP and Head of Corporate Communications Joe Zaldarriaga assured that the company remains fully compliant with all government regulations and that it even outperformed the level of service required by the regulator.

"Further, while Meralco is the largest utility in the country, it has never committed and has no record of any anti-competitive behavior or abuse of market power. On the contrary, we have always managed to supply electricity to our customers in the most transparent and least costly manner," Zaldarriaga said.

DoE imprimatur

In a separate statement over the weekend, Meralco first vice president and Regulatory Management head, Atty. Jose Ronald Valles, argued that the ongoing CSP undertaken by the company was approved by the Department of Energy or DoE.

Valles explained that the initiative was aligned with the requirements and standards set by the government.

 "Our past CSPs conducted are proof that no such tailor-fitting is happening, precisely because the TOR and other bidding documents are required to comply with existing policies of DoE and regulations of ERC, and the resulting Power Supply Agreement needs to be approved by the regulator," Valles said.

"The CSP is a very transparent process, and the resulting PSAs from this bidding will still be subject to the review and approval of the ERC," he added.