Casecnan operator asks court to stop public auction

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — The US company California Energy (Cal-Energy), which owns and operates the Casecnan multi-purpose irrigation and power project, has filed a petition asking the court to stop the provincial government from placing its multimillion-peso facilities and properties under public action.

Provincial legal counsel Desiderio Perez said Cal-Energy is seeking a temporary restraining order for the July 26 public auction of the Casecnan facilities located in Alfonso Castañeda town.

The provincial government issued a warrant of levy to Cal-Energy last June 17 after the US company failed to settle its real property tax obligations amounting to P250 million.

The Department of Finance and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) were also notified about the warrant of levy.

Perez said Cal-Energy earlier received a "notice of delinquency in the payment of real property tax," a prerequisite for the issuance of the warrant of levy before the provincial government could subject the Casecnan facilities and properties to public bidding.

Gov. Luisa Lloren-Cuaresma said the provincial government had tried to come up with a "win-win solution," but Cal-Energy, "hiding under the skirt of the Department of Finance and NIA, (continued to) ignore our plea for it to comply with its tax obligations."

Aside from irrigating more than 600,000 hectares of farmlands in Central Luzon and parts of western Pangasinan, the $10.5-million Casecnan project is also generating at least 500 megawatts for the Luzon grid.

The Casecnan project, built under the build-operate-transfer scheme during the administration of former President Fidel Ramos, siphons water from the Casecnan and Taal rivers in the towns of Alfonso Castañeda and Dupax del Sur and divert it through a 36-kilometer tunnel to the Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija.

Cal-Energy has insisted that it should be the NIA which should pay the real property taxes as embodied in their 2003 supplemental memorandum of agreement.

But Cuaresma said, "A mere agreement cannot supersede any provisions of the Local Government Code. They can even take this issue before the court if they want to. We are prepared for it."