A veteran lawyer who is considered an ‘energy sector outsider’ is reportedly being eyed as prospective officer-in-charge (OIC) at the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) while current Chairperson Monalisa C. Dimalanta is on six-month suspension as ordered by the Office of the Ombudsman.

According to well-entrenched industry sources, the official being targeted is currently an Undersecretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), who took up his law degree from the University of the Philippines (UP) and an esteemed member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi Fraternity in the country’s premier academic institution - the same brotherhood that the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr. had belonged to.

The prospective entry of a justice official at the ERC has been spreading like wildfire among industry stakeholders this week, although as of press time, Malacanang has not named yet who will temporarily sit at the ERC’s helm during Dimalanta’s absence.

Beyond the targeted candidate from outside the energy sector, the traditional set-up of naming OIC at the regulatory body had been based on seniority, and this was enforced during the last leadership scuffle at the ERC in 2017.

At the time, the Office of the President named Alfredo Non as the temporary head of the Commission for roughly six months prior to the appointment of Agnes Devanadera as the Commission Chair in November 2017.

In the current ERC leadership, the most senior Commissioner is lawyer Alexis Lumbatan; and closely following him when it comes to years of service is Commissioner Catherine Maceda.

When Dimalanta formally bowed out from the ERC on Monday (September 9), she assured that “all operations of the agency shall continue to function – to the extent possible and as required by the exigencies of service.”

The prospective ERC OIC will be confronted with voluminous work during that six-month stint at the Commission with more than 2,600 applications and petitions for power supply agreements (PSAs), capital expenditure (capex) projects, rate adjustments as well as other rules enforcement being awaited by industry players for resolution.

Also lined up as urgent in the ERC deliverables would be setting the warranted green energy auction reserve (GEAR) prices for the scheduled RE capacity auctions this year for geothermal and hydro, then the GEA-designed competitive bidding for other RE technologies for next year.

The Commission is also currently defending its 2025 budget in a series of deliberations at the House of Representatives as well as in the Senate, hence, that will likewise be a void that the incoming OIC will assume in the regulatory body’s leadership gap.

Others in the to-do list will also be the proposed restructuring of the ERC as part of the targeted amendments in the Electric Power industry Reform Act (EPIRA) so the ERC can pursue better efficiencies on its function as regulator of the deregulated power industry.