NATIONAL Transmission Corp. (TransCo), owner of the country’s power transmission assets, is planning to diversify its business to include telecommunications, possibly making it a third competitor in the industry.

“I want to diversify TransCo. I will ask Congress to amend the charter of TransCo by making TransCo a transmission company and a telecommunication company,” Melvin A. Matibag, TransCo president and chief executive officer, told reporters.

He said he was looking at making TransCo compete with the country’s dominant telecommunications company Smart Communications, Inc. and Globe Telecom, Inc.

“We will look into it,” Mr. Matibag said, referring to making the company a third telecommunications provider.

He said TransCo would fill up the absence of a “proprietary” government-owned and -controlled corporation engaged in telecommunications.

“NTC [National Telecommunications Commission] is only regulatory and DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) now is a policy [making] body. We will engage in telco. It makes sense. Why? We have the facilities,” he said.

Mr. Matibag said that Transco remains the owner of transmission facilities even as its operation and maintenance have been awarded to privately owned National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) via a congressional franchise.

“We are the owner of the facility,” he said. “Congress has the power to do that, to amend the franchise of NGCP anytime.”

He said TransCo under his helm wants to “engage in all kinds of telecommunications” services since it owns the biggest facilities related to the business.

“Come to think of it, Globe and Smart [are] only using our towers for co-location so that they can provide services in the provinces,” he said.

“So it makes a lot of sense… even if we don’t choose the existing fiber optic [line and] we put up another one, it will be a lot cheaper. You won’t have any right-of-way problems,” he said.

Mr. Matibag also said that funding is the least of his concerns when TransCo gets the franchise and the power to engage in the business, “a lot of entities will participate and enter in a joint venture.”

He said his office was drafting the policy for this endeavor, and that he had presented the idea to the Department of Energy (DoE).

“He [DoE Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi] agrees with the idea,” Mr. Matibag said.

The TransCo chief’s proposal is the latest in the continuing tussle between the state agency and NGCP in cornering big capital energy-related projects.

In June, NGCP said it was preparing to formalize an agreement with the government on the use of the power grid operator’s fiber optic network for the national broadband program.

NGCP said it had been chosen as a partner by the DICT for the program, which it described as bringing the country’s average internet speed closer to those of “first-world countries.”

The company said its fiber optic cables, which cover 6,154 kilometers or 160,779 fiber kilometers, will be the primary network of the program that aims to bring wi-fi connection all over the country.

In early September, NGCP was granted provisional approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission to implement the interconnection between the Visayas and Mindanao power grids for around P51.7 billion.

The project will enable power supply importation among the Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao grids. It covers the linking of the power grids via Cebu in the Visayas and Dipolog City in Mindanao. The converter stations in Visayas and Mindanao will be located in Sibonga, Cebu and Aurora, Zamboanga del Sur, respectively.

Ahead of the approval, TransCo said it wanted to take over all of the country’s power grid interconnection projects at a cost of around P90-P110 billion. It said it was looking at the government’s share in the revenues from the Malampaya offshore gas find to fund these. — Victor V. Saulon

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