Court clears way for PNOC project
Monday, January 16, 2006
By Rey E. Requejo
A Makati City regional trial court has lifted its restraining order on a government project using coconut husks as an alternative source of electricity in power-deficient areas.
In a three-page decision, Judge Romeo Barza of the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 61 said that since the contract between the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) and Shelby Anstalt, a Liechtenstein-based company, is in the nature of government infrastructure project, the court has no authority to intervene.
Barza scrapped the writ of preliminary injunction he issued on July 15, 2005. The project has been delayed by court actions filed by a certain David de Montaigne, who is now facing a deportation case and an estafa case.
A reading of the memoranda of understanding (MoU) discloses the nature of the infrastructure project as a government venture, Barza said. This being the case, it is now clear that the project is within the ambit of Presidential Decree 1818, which prohibits the issuance of injunctive writs against government infrastructure projects, the court said.
The court decision paves the way for the implementation of the project in the island province of Masbate, which experiences recurring outages. The project is expected to be in full operation in four months.
Lawyer Demaree Raval, representative of Shelby-Anstalt in the Philippines, said the power project with PNOC will be launched next month following negotiations to establish a joint venture corporation with the Liechtenstein-based firm, which will provide a clean and efficient renewable energy generating system.
The power project depends on the technology known as gasification and uses “RGV2000M” equipment patented by Dr. Eugene Sukhin, an energy researcher in Ukraine which studied the use of coconut husks and shells as fuel.
“Indeed, the issuance of the injunction against defendant has repercussions on the solution of the country’s energy crisis. As revealed in the MoU, the defendant has the equipment, technologies and methodologies developed in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union which has been operated successfully for over 30 years and the same can be beneficial to our country, which is still, in search for alternative solutions to the energy and power crisis,” Barza observed.
“To continue to enjoin defendant from imparting his technology will set back to our government’s efforts to resolve the crisis,” Barza said.
The PNOC, through its president and chief executive officer Eduardo Manalac, welcomed the recent decision of the lower court allowing the negotiations for the project to proceed.
Masbate needs 9 Mwh for full energization but currently has only 7 Mwh readily available. The RGV2000M will meet this deficiency and could provide as much as 3 Mwh at full operation.
posted by philpower @ 9:14 AM,
