As shown by its organizational chart, the DOE’s multisectoral task force will be headed by Dr. Adoracion Navarro, a senior fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), and will be represented in this study group by PIDS president Gilberto Llanto.
The task force will include over 30 representatives from government, academe, business sectors and labor and consumer groups.
Task force members include Secretary Petilla and businessman Raul Concepcion of Gov’tWatch; plus representatives from the Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC), Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Federation of Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FFCCCI), PIPPA, Meralco, National Consumers Affairs Council (NCAC), National Federation of Women’s Club of the Philippines (NFWCP), Coalition for Consumer Protection and Welfare Inc. (CCPW), Matuwid na Singil sa Kuryente Consumer Alliance Inc. (MSK), Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) and NAGKAISA (United).
Why MSK is one of five consumer groups in this task force, given its questionable status as a non- functioning non-stock NGO, and why is Tan a task force member in his capacity as MSK chief, considering his unsavory background and his string of court cases in Manila and in the US ?
On its website, MSK describes its founders as electricity consumers who have "deep knowledge” of the industry’s privatization and deregulation, and whose goal is "to enlighten the public and policy makers on the specific rules and practices that have been causing the abusive power costs.”
However, two of MSK’s key officers—corporate secretary Lorna Asilo and treasurer Videt Ursula Cusi—certified under oath that this NGO "has not been in operation since its incorporation up to the present.” SEC records show that Asilo
issued this Affidavit of Non-Operation on April 8, 2013, in lieu of an Auditor’s Report. She submitted this document to report that the NGO had total assets below P500,000 and annual gross receipts of less than P100,000.
Cusi issued her own Affidavit of Non-Operation attesting to this organization’s true status on May 23, 2013.
So why has Tan been blessed enough to be in the company of distinguished industry leaders in the task force as representative of a fledgling consumer group that is actually dormant, as attested to by its own key officers?//
