The city government of Iloilo warned it will auction off next month the assets of Panay Electric Co. (PECO) to settle the latter’s P106 million real estate tax liability and penalties since 2006.
Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Trenas said the auction will solve the city government’s collection problem with the distribution utility (DU), which allegedly refused to pay the real estate tax assessed by the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) on the land where its electricity posts stand on.
The local government will put a floor price of P106,881,685.33 for the property in a bidding set on December 12. This was computed based on PECO’s total tax liability since 2006, cost of the sale including documentary stamp tax and registration fee.
The Iloilo CTO said total market value of the posts stands at P214.9 million.
Meanwhile, the city’s DU, More Electric and Power Corp. (MORE), stands firm a Court of Appeals (CA) ruling confirmed its power of eminent domain remains valid despite a case being heard by the Supreme Court (SC) to determine if a Mandaluyong court’s ruling against the company’s power of expropriation as a congressional franchise-holder is constitutional.
MORE said the SC has yet to grant PECO’s petition to stop the Iloilo City regional trial court (RTC) from proceeding with the expropriation case as it only directed the Razon Group and the Iloilo City RTC to comment on PECO’s petition.
It added that the CA’s October 3 ruling affirmed that the SC has exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving DUs under the Electricity Power Industry Reform Act and that as long as the SC has not issued any injunction against expropriation proceedings, it can proceed, according to the CA’s decision which affirmed the status of MORE as the new franchise holder in Iloilo.
