State-backed Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC) is muscling up its energy game, as it just recently brought in former National Power Corporation (NPC) President Ma. Gladys Cruz-Sta Rita in its executive team as Vice President of Investment Management Group, a strategic hire that could help beef up its capital infusion bets into the power industry.

A highly-placed industry source exclusively told Manila Bulletin that Sta Rita joined Maharlika in March this year; and since then, she has been working closely with MIC President Rafael Consing Jr. in fully organizing the structural set-up of the government-led firm; and she will also be among the driving forces in their energy ventures.

The Maharlika Investment Fund serves as the ‘sovereign wealth fund’ of the Philippines that has to be managed by the MIC – that is by virtue of the provisions of Republic Act 11954.

At Maharlika, it is expected that Sta Rita will be playing a crucial role primarily in helping the executive team navigate as well as weigh decisions and forward actions on the 20-percent shareholdings it cornered in the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), the concessionaire of the country’s power transmission system; as well as on other energy investments that MIC had already plunged into.

With the preferred shares acquisition in NGCP’s holding company Synergy Grid & Development Philippines (SGP), in particular, the government somehow cemented a partnership with the private sector shareholders – primarily Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp of billionaire Henry Sy Jr and the Calaca High Power Corp of tycoon Robert Coyiuto Jr., as well as with foreign partner State Grid of China Corporation.

The main concern of the power industry is on upgrading and aggressively expanding the power grid and elevate it to a modernized stature that can viably and efficiently integrate massive-scale renewable energy investments, a critical pillar of the country’s energy transition goal.

Apart from her stint as NPC chief executive during the Aquino administration, Sta Rita also has experience in public policy development and enforcements - having served as Provincial Administrator in the province of Bulacan; and in her consultancy work for the health projects of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In the energy sector, her wealth of experience similarly spans across major agencies - including her chairmanship stint with the Philippine National Oil Company-Development and Management Corporation and having held board directorships in the PNOC parent firm, then in the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) as well as in the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC), the governance body of the country’s electricity spot market.

During her leadership tenure at NPC, Sta Rita had set focus in solving power supply disruption dilemmas across regional areas by enhancing the capacity of the Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) in addressing the electricity services needs of off-grid domains; that being the residual function of the state-run power firm after the privatization of its major assets.

It was also during her time at NPC that the rehabilitation for the 218-MW Angat hydropower complex had been firmed up – that was following the facility’s privatization that had been cornered by Korea Water Resources Corp (K-Water), which later on partnered with San Miguel Energy Corp. of the San Miguel group in the ownership and operation of the facility.

Back in 2016, Sta Rita sounded off that the rehabilitation of the Angat dam has been a major concern because “the dam failure would present considerable risks to lives and properties downstream,” thus, warranted repairs on the facility had been urgently needed then to prevent those feared scenarios.

The Angat dam is not just utilized for electricity generation to boost supply in the Luzon grid, but it is also an essential source of drinking water for significant portion of Metro Manila; as well as an irrigation anchor to farmlands in Bulacan and Pampanga