PNOC Energy Development Corporation (Case Study)

Energy Development Corporation (EDC) used to be a subsidiary of Philippine National Oil Company. PNOC EDC is the largest producer of geothermal energy in the Philippines and the second largest in the World. It is involved in geothermal, hydro and wild energy projects. EDC was formerly owned by the Philippine National Oil Company, a state corporation owned by the Republic of the Philippines engaged in the exploration of resources, production of energy and distribution of power supply to smaller electricity distributor. It was privatized and sold to First Philippine Holdings Corporation, a Lopez-owned and controlled corporation involved in energy and power supply generations business.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Development_Corporation

To give a brief background, a tragic incident happened at dawn of March 26, 2004, a band of about 60 armed extremists seized the company’s P100-million Rig 8 in Barrio Tongonan in Kananga, Leyte demanding ransom payment. PNOC EDC ignored the extremists’ demand, the extremists killed some regular workers who were coming to work. Aquino, who had just president of the company a month before, noticed that there were full of onlookers and just curious at what was going on and no sympathy for the bereaved families. To find out why the townsfolk seemed unconcerned about the tragic incident, Aquino had an informal survey done. The survey showed that residents of the host communities did not relate to PNOC EDC or to its employees. To them the company only exploited the area without giving back anything to the local residents. Local people considered PNOC EDC employees aloof and supercilious.

The issue with the case is that there’s a wall between PNOC EDC and the community. In my opinion, the company should start by opening up the camp to the children of the community and build friendship with them so that the children can tell to their parents.

At the end of the day, I’ve learned that CSR should start from home (within your organization) then going out to the community. The company should practice internal equity such as employee participation in which the employees where updated, to have a better understanding on what’s happening in the plant.

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