Supreme Court did not stop construction of coal plant

This refers to the editorial “Risky powers” (9/23/14), specifically the first paragraph that reads: “Since 2012, the government had been warned that a shortage of electricity was very likely by 2015. That was after the Supreme Court stopped private investors from putting up a 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant inside the Subic free port. President Aquino ignored the warning, but now he wants emergency powers to tackle a power crisis predicted inevitable in the summer of next year.”

The second sentence, “That was after the Supreme Court stopped private investors from putting up a 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant inside the Subic free port,” is not true.

This was the subject of an earlier report by your TJ Burgonio (“SC blamed for looming power crisis,” News, 8/21/14), which we corrected by e-mail (dated 8/28/14) and which became the subject of a clarificatory item by Mr. Burgonio (“Purisima told: SC didn’t stop Subic power plant,” News, 8/29/14).

In our e-mail, we informed Mr. Burgonio that the Supreme Court did not issue any writ of restraint over the coal plant in Subic. In a resolution dated July 31, 2012, in G.R. No. 202493 titled “Teodoro Casiño, et al. v. Hon. Ramon Paje, et al.,” the Supreme Court en banc issued a Writ of Kalikasan, referred the petition to the Court of Appeals and directed the respondents to make a verified return of the Writ of Kalikasan to the Court of Appeals, BUT HELD IN ABEYANCE THE ISSUANCE OF A TEMPORARY ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ORDER, which, under the Rules on the Writ of Kalikasan, would have served as a writ of restraint or the equivalent of a temporary restraining order. A verification with the Court of Appeals has shown that, in fact, it has directed that the Redondo power plant should proceed.

Subsequent verification shows that the case has been resolved by the Court of Appeals in favor of the power plant and is now pending at the Supreme Court. To date, there is no TRO over the power plant from the Supreme Court.

—THEODORE O. TE,

assistant court administrator and

chief public information officer,

Supreme Court

WE regret the error.—Ed.