The Office of the Ombudsman will seek plunder and graft charges against Sen. Loren Legarda and her son Rep. Leandro Leviste (Batangas, 1st District) over allegations they “conspired” to secure solar contracts that locked out rival investors and created a “virtual monopoly.”
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said Friday, July 31, he has signed the charge sheet setting a preliminary investigation, the step that comes before cases are filed in court.
Former Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi is the third respondent in the possible complaints.
“Ombudsman investigators found that Senator Loren Legarda, Congressman Leandro Legarda Leviste and former DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi conspired to secure exclusive government rights over the country’s solar energy resources through legislative and regulatory actions,” the Office of the Ombudsman said in a press statement.
The complaints filed allege violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act 3019), the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees (Republic Act 6713), and the Plunder Law (Republic Act 7080).
“Ombudsman investigators found that numerous exclusive solar energy service contracts were awarded to corporations within the alleged network, but many of the projects were never developed as promised,” the Ombudsman statement read.
“The number of service contracts obtained by Leviste created a virtual monopoly of solar energy projects,” it added.
The Ombudsman estimates that the total unpaid financial obligations to the government exceed P10.44 billion due to the terminated contracts.
“That P10 billion is only the contracts,” Remulla said in mixed English and Filipino at a briefing on Friday. “What our fellow Filipinos lost runs into hundreds of billions.”
In January this year, the Department of Energy flagged the Leviste-owned Solar Philippines for failing to comply with its contractual commitments over the past several years.
Remulla said exclusive service contracts essentially gave Leviste sole authority to produce, use and sell solar energy across the country.
“It is as if they own the sun, the power of the sun, to the exclusion of other Filipinos and other investors,” Remulla said.
“They promised they would produce electricity. It’s printed in the Philippine Energy Plan,” he said. “They didn’t do it. They just sold, they just made money. If they built anything, it was a pittance.”
Why Legarda is included in the possible charges
Remulla argued that since Leviste was 21 when he obtained the exclusive franchise, he would not have gotten it without Legarda, his mother.
“He wouldn’t have gotten it if his mother, the chair of the Senate finance committee, hadn’t helped him,” Remulla said. “She used her position so her son could get the franchise.”
Remulla said there is also potential conflict of interest in the dealings that Leviste had inside Congress and with contractors.
Pressed on Leviste’s likely claim that he is just being persecuted politically, Remulla said his office had first studied the possible charges.
“This is a very novel case. It’s not something you just think up,” Remulla said. “But if you study what happened to our energy sector, we really suffered from what they did.”
Remulla said he gave instructions for fact-finding as early as November and the work began in January.