Garin: Leviste contract cancellation not linked to Cabral files

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin denied that the so-called Cabral files had anything to do with the cancellation of Batangas 1st District Rep. Leandro Leviste’s Solar Philippines contract.

In an interview with ANC, Garin said the Department of Energy has been canceling Leviste’s contract since 2019 and 2022.

"We've been cancelling his contract ever since. DOE has been trying to distance itself from all these because we have to protect our investors and the integrity of the industry," Garin said.

The DOE has terminated a total of 17,000 megawatts of renewable service contracts from Solar Philippines, imposing a P24 billion penalty because the company failed to meet the agreed-upon power production.

Leviste, in a statement, said he had been receiving warnings since September, allegedly because of his efforts to obtain flood-control-related files from former Undersecretary Catalina Cabral.

Garin reiterated that the DOE had no involvement in the flood control probe and was, in fact, “hesitant to cancel [the contract] because of the Cabral files,” adding, “baka madali yung DOE (DOE might be implicated).”

"We are regulators, and we need to discipline our investors. Now, just because there's a sitting congressman as one of our investors doesn't mean we exempt him from the general rules," she added.