Psalm chief resigns

Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm) president Edgardo del Fonso has announced his resignation by the end of the month.

Although he declined to spell out the reasons for his pending resignation, Del Fonso simply told The STAR: "I’m out of Psalm by the end of this month."

The Harvard-educated Psalm official had recently undergone a heart surgery. After months of medical rehabilitation, del Fonso reported back to work a few weeks ago.

Del Fonso was appointed by President Arroyo to head Psalm on July 2001, a month after the President signed into law the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) creating the agency.

Prior to his appointment, Del Fonso was the managing director of Bancommerce Investment Corp. For five years, he was the executive vice-president & Chief Financial Officer of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).

Del Fonso was also the CFO of Philippine Airlines and managing director of the Investment & Capital Corp. of the Philippines.

Del Fonso held the position of undersecretary of the Department of Finance.

He stayed for 14 years with Philippine National Oil Co. & Affiliates from manager of PNOC’s Treasury Department, vice president for corporate planning, vice president - finance to executive vice president for corporate affairs.

Del Fonso also served as director of Goodyear Philippines, Republic Glass Corp., PISO Bank, Regent Hotel of Manila and all PNOC affiliates.

He became a consultant (vice-presidential level) of the House of Investments, Inc. and a faculty member of the University of the Philippines College of Business Administration, De La Salle College Graduate School of Business and Jose Rizal College.

The Psalm under the management of Del Fonso is primarily tasked under the Epira law to take ownership of all existing generation assets, liabilities, independent power producers (IPP) contracts, real estate and all other disposable assets of the National Power Corp. (Napocor).

By the first quarter of 2004, Psalm will undertake the sale of the first generation assets of Napocor and will start negotiations with Singapore Power Corp., the sole bidder for the Napocor’s transmission assets.

Proceeds from Napocor privatization will help plug the country’s consolidated public sector deficit as it is expected to provide inflow of investments worth $4 billion to $5 billion.

The privatization will provide annual savings of about $500 million or P25 billion in financing charges. But if government fails to privatize these assets would mean P25 billion losses and it has to shoulder P98 billion worth of investments to upgrade the transmission facilities for the next 10 years.