From energy wonderkid to controversy magnet
Leandro Leviste, son of Sen. Loren Legarda and former Batangas Gov. Antonio Leviste, paved his career path at a young age.
He was a political science sophomore at Yale University in 2013, supposedly heading to law school, when he started a company to become a player in the energy sector.
At age 20, he founded Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings Inc. (SPPHI) with a $100-million bank loan as capital.
A year later, the new company was already amassing service contracts from the Department of Energy (DOE).
In September 2014, SPPHI inaugurated its first project: a 700-kilowatt solar system on the roof deck of Central Mall Biñan. It later on powered other malls, including SM North Edsa in Quezon City.
In 2015, the company invested its starting capital in a 63-MW solar farm near the foot of Mt. San Piro in Calatagan, Batangas, which eventually became a partnership with Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco). It eventually sold its 380-percent stake to Kepco in 2018 for P2.25 billion, raising the farm value to more than P5 billion.
Leviste went on to build another solar farm in Tarlac and took in as partner Enrique Razon Jr.’s Prime Infrastructure, which invested P1.5 billion to acquire a 50-percent stake in 2020.
He also had two more projects in Batangas and Cavite with a combined capacity of 140 MW that were targeted to be fully operational in 2022.
Ambitious projects
In June 2021, ACEN Corp., the energy business of conglomerate Ayala Corp., extended a loan to SPPHI amounting to P1 billion to finance acquisition of project sites for solar power projects.
Among Leviste’s most ambitious recent projects was the 500-MW solar farm in Nueva Ecija, touted to be the largest in Southeast Asia, with leasing rights covering 352.42 hectares of former pasture land and the potential to scale up to 1.2 gigawatts.
Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija Corp. (SPNEC), the firm’s subsidiary undertaking this massive project, obtained in 2021 the go-ahead from corporate regulators to launch an initial public offering worth P2.7 billion, bringing the first solar pure play to the local stock market.
This also made Leviste, at 28 years old, the youngest business founder in recent Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) history to take a company public.
SPNEC was also the first to qualify for the PSE’s decade-old but never-before tested renewable energy (RE) listing rules, which allow RE firms without operating history to launch an IPO as long as they have a valid and subsisting service contract awarded by the DOE alongside compliance with other requirements.
In March 2023, tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Investments Corp. announced the infusion of a P2-billion investment in Leviste’s SPNEC plus an option that could make it the solar energy start-up’s single largest shareholder.
It was also reported that Metro Pacific was buying the shares from SPPHI, which will use the proceeds to fund land investments for its planned 2,000-hectare solar farm venture in Nueva Ecjia under Terra Solar Philippine Inc., a venture with Razon.
In September 2024, Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), the power generation subsidiary of Pangilinan-led Manila Electric Co., invested an additional P7.5 billion to beef up its stake in SPNEC. The MVP Group took control of SPNEC in December 2023 after Meralco injected P15.9 billion into the solar power firm.
Franchise controversy
Leviste has earned the ire of several players, stakeholders, and business groups in the power and energy industries on the issue of obtaining a 25-year franchise for his other company, Solar Para sa Bayan Corp. (SPB).
In 2018, a bill was proposed at the House of Representatives granting a national franchise to SPB. This was later questioned by a group of lawmakers who filed a resolution to block its passage.
Stakeholders in the power industry like the National Renewable Energy Board and the Developers of Renewable Energy for Advancement Inc. protested against the franchise application citing undue advantages and how it would contradict franchises given to existing utilities.
In June 2019, however, the Senate and the House ratified the solar franchise bill.
Several business groups asked then President Rodrigo Duterte to review the franchise, citing its impact on small, mini, and microgrids in the country. They said a franchise for Leviste’s company “will create an undue competitive edge in favor of SPB Corp. and put at a disadvantage other renewable energy companies now operating in our country.”
Despite protests, Duterte signed Republic Act No. 11357 in July 2019, granting a 25-year renewable energy distribution franchise to SPB, the renewable energy distribution firm owned by Leviste who was just 25 years old at the time.
SPB is described on its website as “a Filipino social enterprise which aims to serve Filipino communities with cheap, clean, reliable 24/7 electricity.”
The law granted SPB a nonexclusive franchise to construct, install, establish, operate and maintain solar-powered facilities in areas without electricity or underserved nationwide. These include Aklan, Aurora, Bohol, Cagayan, Camiguin, Capiz, Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental, Guimaras, Isabela, Masbate, Misamis Occidental, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Palawan, Batangas, and Quezon.
‘Cabral files’
In October 2024, Leviste filed his certificate of candidacy to run for representative of Batangas’ first district. Reports said Leviste decided to enter politics after selling Meralco a controlling stake in SPNEC for P34 billion.
In the May 2025 elections, he secured 268,764 votes, or 75 percent of the total, defeating incumbent Eric Buhain, who received 91,588 votes.
Leviste has been making headlines in the past few weeks after claiming to have obtained copies of the documents kept by former Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral three months before the sudden death of the controversial official in December.
He has since been posting on social media about the so-called Cabral files, particularly on the funds allotted to certain lawmakers, inviting further scrutiny as part of the ongoing investigations into anomalous public works projects. —WITH A REPORT FROM LISBET K. ESMAEL
Source: Inquirer Archives
