San Miguel Global Power (SMGP) said Wednesday, Aug. 13, that the Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) has cleared its Ilijan Gas Power Plant of any violations related to a 2022 outage, calling a recent regulatory order from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) “outdated and without basis.”

SMGP, which operates the 1,200-megawatt plant through its subsidiary South Premiere Power Corp. (SPPC), said PEMC’s Market Surveillance Committee and Board concluded that the plant's shutdown from June 5 to June 25, 2022, was due to unforeseen fuel supply constraints.

However, on July 24, 2025, former ERC Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta issued a show-cause order to SPPC, directing the company to explain why it shouldn’t be penalized for alleged anti-competitive behavior.

The order stems from an earlier August 2022 resolution from PEMC’s Market Surveillance Committee, which was endorsed by the ERC during the tenure of Dimalanta.

The ERC’s order alleged that the plant was on “open breaker status” during the outage, which coincided with higher spot market prices.

SMGP countered that its outage was a result of sudden constraints in its natural gas supply after the cessation of gas delivered via pipeline. The company stated it made diligent efforts to address the issue.

For this reason,

To prevent similar problems, SMGP has since commissioned a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal capable of receiving and processing natural gas for up to 2,500 megawatts of power generation. This is equivalent to about 15 percent of Luzon’s net dependable capacity.

At the time of the outage, SMGP was the full owner of SPPC. The company now holds a 33 percent stake after Meralco PowerGen and Aboitiz Power entered as partners.

Similarly, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) raised concerns about another show-cause order issued by Dimalanta. The order, which demanded documents related to a power supply agreement (PSA) with Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC), was called “unfair” by Meralco.

The company stated that the contract with PEDC was a fixed-price financial agreement that did not include a separate fuel cost component. Meralco also pointed out that the PSA with PEDC had already been terminated in 2021, so it couldn't submit documents for a period after the agreement ended.

Meralco stressed that the action by the former chairperson was a “blatant violation of due process” and “not only unreasonable but illegal.” The company believes the issue could have been avoided if the ERC had clearly requested the documents back in 2023.

Meralco concluded its statement by saying, “It is unfortunate that one of the final acts of the former ERC Chairperson was to issue a fallacious order which she very well knows she will not be able to see through the end, leaving the incoming Chair to pick up the pieces.”