Poor Rudy! Perhaps, it is because Meralco is the biggest power distributor (with the highest costs compared to other smaller distributors in the country) and whenever Albano has to explain ERC’s workings, it is always Meralco that he seems to be protecting. This is specially true when media’s questions are accusatory as when the questions start off "Why did the ERC allow Meralco" to have this or that privilege or favor.

Somehow, one gets the impression that both Albano and Meralco are looking at the power sector with the same eyes. Both are looking at the industry with the same perspective – Meralco’s! This is dismaying to those who hear Rudy because their idea of a good, working ERC chairman is one, who by his mandate will go out of his way to protect the consumer from the power distributor, It does not help the ERC and the government when the ERC chairman seems to be chummy, if not in cahoots with the greedy power distributor.

The public perception of the ERC and its chairman is that they have done absolutely nothing to enforce the provisions of the Epira and Meralco’s own franchise for the company to provide its captive market electricity at the least cost to the consumers.

Meralco charges its customers two to three pesos more per kilowatt hour compared to what other distributors charge. This has been going on for so long now that one wonders why the ERC seems not to notice that Meralco is purchasing more expensive power from Lopez-owned power producers.

The ERC has also made a travesty of a Supreme Court order for the customers of Meralco to be refunded the P30 billion with which Meralco padded our electric bills with from 1994 to 2002.

The ER allowed Meralco to stagger the refund through the years. The ERC may also have betrayed consumers who have yet to be paid the refund by not minding Meralco’s delaying tactics and the many requirements it has been asking us its customers before the refund is given.

These and other delaying tactics of Meralco have been legitimized by the ERC under Albano and even by the Energy Regulatory Board (ERB) in the past.

The Supreme Court again had to come to the rescue of Meralco customers when it disallowed a provisional power rate increase effected through the ERC by Meralco in 2004. The SC put its foot on the increase and ordered a refund of the same to customers after discovering that Meralco and the ERC short-circuited the process by which such an increase can be justified.

Without the benefit of public hearings and publication of the rate increase, ERC approved Meralco’s petition for a provisional rate increase. Providentially, a consumers’ group blew the whistle on the shenanigans of the ERC and Meralco before the SC.

There’s still another SC ruling being put aside by the ERC and Albano. The SC ordered that the financial books of Meralco be audited by COA upon the recommendation of ERC.

The National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms (Nasecore) brought this irregularity to public attention after being given the runaround by Albano and COA when it asked whatever happened to the 2006 SC order.

According to Nasecore president Pete Ilagan, COA blamed ERC for not making an official request for COA to audit Meralco. Question now is why can’t Albano make a simple request to COA to comply with the SC order.

The litany of complaints against Albano and the ERC concerning their kid-glove, treatment of Meralco are legion.

There are the P21.4 billion meter and bill customer deposits the refund for which the ERC sat on for four long years by not issuing a guidelines on its collection. When Albano finally came up with the guidelines last month, it looked like something that came out of the Meralco Board. Albano gave Meralco five years to refund the P21.4 billion.

The good news for Rudy Albano is that he will soon be out of the ERC since his term is just about over. Would he have been better off extending the Mediterranean cruise he was on just the before the cozy relationship between ERC and Meralco surfaced?

Environment Secretary Jose Atienza Jr. is talking a lot of sense when he wants to look at a solution to Metro Manila’s garbage disposal problem by going the route of Singapore’s Pulau Semaku floating landfill.

Atienza saw this when he attended the Water Leaders’ Summit and addressed the Southeast Asia Business Forum.

Pulau Semaku Off-Shore Sanitary Landfill is a reclaimed 350-hectare island, was opened in 1999 and is capable of carrying 63 million cubic meters of waste. It will serve as Singapore’s main disposal facility even beyond 2045.

It is also an eco-tourism destination for fishing, bird watching, biodiversity, stargazing, mangrove development and educational and recreational outing. First, Singapore incinerates its wastes; then the ash is dumped on the floating landfill.

Atienza says: "An island sanitary landfill for Metro Manila may be doable if we can bring the cost down and secure appropriate engineering interventions to address the effects of typhoons. The technology for preventing seepage of leachate to the sea and the ground appears to be working in the Semaku landfill."

The Philippines still has 713 open dumpsites in blatant violation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (RA 9003).