[Vantage Point] The Leviste solar saga – why markets should be worried

Batangas 1st District Representative Leandro Antonio Legarda Leviste posted on January 11 in his Facebook page the denial of Meralco PowerGen Corporation (MGEN) that it did not acquire any shares in Solar Para sa Bayan Corp., (SPBC) which was awarded a congressional franchise through Republic Act 11357. MGEN says it  is not privy to any transactions of SPBC and that SP New Energy Corp., (SPNEC) business and operations are not dependent on that franchise. Leviste was reacting to Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla’s allegation that Leviste sold SPBC’s franchise without congressional approval.

This column is not an indictment of MGEN or its investment decision. It is a market analysis of how Leandro Leviste monetized regulatory confidence and political permission — rather than delivered capacity — to secure a multibillion-peso exit ahead of execution. By tracing how franchises, service contracts, and dynastic access were converted into valuation before megawatts arrived, Vantage Point examines how risk was shifted downstream to utilities, lenders, regulators, and consumers — and why the real issue is not who bought the platform, but how permissions became the product in Philippine clean energy.

When questions surfaced about whether Leandro Leviste monetized political permissions rather than megawatts, the rebuttal was technical, precise — and incomplete. MGEN, it was said, did not acquire shares in Solar Para sa Bayan Corp. (SPBC), the franchise holder under Republic Act 11357. MGEN was not privy to SPBC transactions. SPNEC, the listed vehicle, does not depend on the franchise to operate.

All of that may be factually correct, but none of it addresses the real issue.

Infrastructure markets do not price legality alone. They price confidence. And confidence is built not only on contracts and balance sheets, but on the ecosystem of permissions that makes those contracts feel durable, expandable, and politically survivable. You do not need to sell a franchise outright to sell its economic value. You only need to convert the certainty it creates into bankable expectations — before delivery is required.

That is what Vantage Point exposes.

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[Vantage Point] The Leviste gambit: Monetizing clean energy for political gains?

The transaction that defined Leviste’s rise was not a sale of electrons. It was the monetization of optionality. When SPNEC shares were sold in tranches to Meralco’s renewable arm MGEN — culminating in a ₱13.76-billion block sale in October 2025 — the underlying asset was not operating cash flow. It was a development platform: service contracts, land banks, permits, grid assumptions, and the belief that execution would follow.

Markets understand this distinction instinctively. A power company is valued on what it produces. A development platform is valued on what it might produce — and on how likely regulators, lenders, and policymakers are to remain patient while it tries.

This is where political capital matters, even when it is not formally transferred.

Republic Act 11357 became law in April 2019 during the term of former President Rodrigo and which Leviste’s mother, Loren Legarda, witnessed before her term ended on June 30, 2019. 

So in timeline terms, the franchise that later became central to the Solar Para sa Bayan Leviste ecosystem was enacted squarely under the Duterte administration, not before and not after — an important contextual detail when assessing political backing, regulatory confidence, and the sequencing of Leviste’s business expansion.

That alignment is not conjecture — it is chronological fact, and it explains why questions about political backing, regulatory confidence, and market optics persist regardless of later denials about ownership or dependency.

Duterte did not have to sit on SPNEC’s balance sheet to shape its valuation. The law did something subtler and more powerful: it established that the Leviste ecosystem could move faster, broader, and with fewer obstacles than competitors. It signaled legislative comfort with scale. It normalized exceptional access. It lowered perceived regulatory friction, not just for one company but for an entire constellation of projects bearing the same name, leadership, and political lineage.

That signal is what markets price.

I am not making a conjecture. It is patently clear that such is observable behavior. From renewable service contracts to land acquisition to institutional financing, Leviste’s platforms accumulated scale farther and faster than physical delivery. By the time regulators disclosed that dozens of awarded contracts were facing discontinuance, liquidity had already been secured. The founder had exited at scale. Execution risk had moved — quietly but decisively — downstream.

That risk did not disappear. It landed where it always does. It landed on the balance sheets of utilities now responsible for delivery timelines they did not originate. It landed on lenders financing long-gestation projects before revenue. It landed on regulators forced to revise planning assumptions when promised capacity failed to arrive. And ultimately, it landed on consumers, who pay higher power prices when cheap solar does not materialize on schedule.

This is why the denial misses the point.

Whether or not MGEN bought a franchise is immaterial. What matters is that it bought into a platform whose value was shaped by political confidence long before there was operational proof. The transaction priced belief ahead of performance. And once belief is monetized, the incentive structure changes. Urgency weakens. Accountability diffuses. Moral hazard becomes systemic.

The problem is compounded — not softened — by Leviste’s pivot into politics.

In a perfect world, reform credibility is earned through tedious work: committee scrutiny, legislative negotiation, budget discipline, and institutional reform that survives personalities. What markets discount is spectacle. When a public official adopts the posture of a crusader while standing atop unfinished infrastructure, investors do not see courage. They see volatility.

Performance politics is not neutral in infrastructure. It widens regulatory risk premia. It slows approvals. It raises the cost of capital. And it makes foreign investors — already cautious about governance consistency — price in an extra layer of uncertainty.

The irony is stark. A platform built on regulatory patience now faces the consequences of political theatrics that erode it.

None of this requires alleging illegality. It requires only following the money, the timing, and the incentives. Leandro Leviste did not have to sell a franchise to sell its value. He only had to sell the confidence it created — before delivery, before enforcement, before the first megawatt arrived.

That is the real reckoning this episode forces.

If the Philippines is comfortable with a clean-energy market where the most valuable asset is not generation but permission — where exits precede execution and risk is socialized after liquidity — then this model will repeat. If not, then the fix is not rhetorical. It is procedural: faster milestone enforcement, harder performance bonds, transparent contract-level reporting, and a strict separation between political branding and infrastructure governance.

This is because the country does not run on narratives. It runs on electrons.

And until execution catches up with monetization, this will remain less a story of clean energy than a lesson in how power, timing, and permission can be turned into cash — while everyone else pays the risk. – Rappler.com

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