Under the leadership of President Gladys Sta. Rita, the National Power Corporation (NPC) evolved from a dying corporation into a financially and operationally-viable government institution which just recently bested a “corporate-wide” QMS ISO 9000 – 2009 Certification and a record P2.9 billion in net income by the end of 2015. This represents an 89% increase from its P1.5 billion income for 2014, allowing the corporation the financial sustainability to be able to again remit dividends to the National Government after seven years of near insolvency.
Collection efficiency is at an all-time high after three years. In Luzon, Visayas and Eastern Mindanao, it rose from 85.62% in 2012 to 98.4% in 2015. There also had been a significant collection improvement in traditionally poor-performing provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-tawi in Mindanao, after the corporation launched a series of successful dialogues with cash-strapped electric cooperatives with the help of local government officials in these areas.
President Sta. Rita is also instrumental in the restructuring of the corporation’s tariff applications to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for the company to collect its Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification (UCME), and effectively subsidize electrification of off-grid communities in the country.
NPC was able to reach more off-grid areas in the country during the last three years, notwithstanding the policy limits set by the approved Missionary Electrification Development Plan (MEDP) by the Department of Energy. The plan originally constricted the operational reach of the company, and stipulated the cessation of its operations in major islands and the transfer of its functions to other government agencies and the private sector by 2017.
Under the leadership of President Sta. Rita, the operational expansion of NPC gave justice to thousands of Filipino households that have yet to experience the benefits of electricity. Because of its robust financial position and with the support of the National Government through the Department of Budget Management (DBM), the company was able to purchase additional generating units to augment the dwindling capacities of its power plants.
In the past three years, NPC-SPUG had extended the operating hours of at least 67 SPUG islands.For the first time, SPUG plants in El Nido, Taytay, Culion and San Vicente in Palawan, Caluya in Antique, Siasi in Sulu, and Polillo in Quezon are now on full 24-hour operations, further boosting the potential of these bustling local economies.
All these were accomplished because of NPC’s prudent management of resources, particularly fuel which is the lifeblood of its plants. Under President Sta. Rita’s watch, NPC-SPUG plants have redrafted and redesigned its ageing Fuel Operations Manual originally designed for large facilities. It now caters to small, compact plants which had defined SPUG operations in off-grid islands and communities it now serves.
In three years, NPC had evolved into a truly “customer-centric” power company, as President Sta. Rita had consistently called for its officials, managers, and employees to “reach out, listen, and serve the needs of the customers”.
It was during this period that NPC revived dam and watershed people’s organizations like the the Caliraya-Lumot Watershed Ecological Community (CLWEC)—an organized community of stakeholders in the Caliraya-Lumot Watershed Reservation (CLWR); organized volunteer youth organizations dubbed as “Batang Kalikasan”—young dams and watershed environmental champions; and engaged indigenous communities like the Dumagats in Luzon, the highland communities of Benguet, and the Balo-I tribe and other peoples in Mindanao, in ensuring the preservation and protection of the vast watershed reserves under NPC’s care.
NPC’s improved collection efficiency can also be attributed to its constant dialogues with electric cooperatives and local government units involved. It is also during these dialogues when LGUs are engaged to contribute to improving their local coops’ collection efficiency.
NPC took the initiative of reviving the Philippine National Committee on Large Dams (PNCOLD), a non-profit organization of owners and operators of large dams in the country established in 1958.
With the budget support from the National Government through the MWSS, NPC also started modernizing of its Flood Forecasting and Monitoring System set to be completed in 2017.
As provided by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), NPC is responsible for the management of the remaining power assets of the government, for the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM). These include the seven Agus-Pulangi hydroelectric power plants in Mindanao, power barges, and the Ilijan Natural Gas Receiving Facility (INGRF) in Batangas.
In 2015, the estimated power generated by the six cascading Agus Power Plants and Pulangi 4 HEP accounted for a total of 3,658.35 GWh or a good 55.98% of the whole Mindanao grid; more than half of the electricity requirement of the entire region. This equates to a total gross income of Php 10.308 billion for the National Government.
NPC had also facilitated the smooth transfer of the Angat Hydroelectric Power Plant and Power Barges 101,102 and 103 to the private sector.
Unknown to many in government, NPC helped prevent a potential power crisis in Luzon in the summer months of 2015, through the full utilization of the Kalayaan Pumped Hydro Storage Plant in Laguna by raising the water level of the Caliraya man-made lake that supports the facility.
Personally led by President Sta. Rita, NPC met with affected residents and businesses in the area and convinced them of the greater advantage of relocating to a higher and safer site. Community leaders and residents peacefully obliged and cleared the area in time for the raising of water levels.
This accomplishment had earned a commendation for the NPC president in a privilege speech of Senator Sergio Osmena last Feb 10, 2015 at the Senate floor.
Under President Sta. Rita’s personal tutelage, NPC was able to break legal deadlocks that long held back strategic transmission projects in the provinces of Mindoro Occidental and Mindoro Oriental, and Palawan. It was because of her intercession with formerly adversarial parties that NPC is now implementing nine (9) different transmission line projects in the provinces of Masbate, Palawan, Catanduanes, Oriental Mindoro and Occidental Mindoro. All of these projects were funded only during President Sta. Rita’s term because of the corporation’s positive earnings and additional funding support after successful representations to the national government.
Ma. Gladys Cruz – Sta. Rita is the first female president of the National Power Corporation. Appointed in 2013 and served until March 2017, Ms. Sta. Rita has earned the respect and admiration of key leaders and players in the industry, after being able to implement sweeping reforms in the company. She once served as a director of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. and chairman of its subsidiary PNOC Development and Management Corporation.
Before her stint in the energy sector, she was the youngest and longest-serving provincial administrator of the province of Bulacan for 17 years. She also worked as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development through the UPEcon Foundation.
In 2008, she authored the groundbreaking book, ‘Running a Bureaucracy’, a centennial publication of the University of the Philippines National College for Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) and co-authored ‘Towards an Informed Citizen’s Participation in Local Governance: A Sourcebook on Local Public Finance’ published by Social Watch Philippines and the United Nations Development Programme.
Sta. Rita has an economics degree from the University of the Philippines and a master’s degree in Public Administration at La Consolacion University of the Philippines.” She attended a Certificate Program at the Kennedy School of Government at the Harvard University.
“Coming from decades of experience in reengineering organizations, local governments, and making policy work for people instead of people working for policy, I realized that it takes both tact and mastery of the trade to really arrive at solid results. And it takes good policy plus effective managerial skills to make the best engineering solutions work at a magnitude that is sustainable and efficient, especially in a company whose national presence is as expansive as NPC”.
– Ma. Gladys Cruz-Sta. Rita
Woman in Power, The Standard
June 01, 2014