[Rappler’s Best] The sun sets for the Leviste son

LEANDRO LEVISTE. Batangas 1st District Representative Leandro Leviste attends the resumption of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probe on anamalous flood control projects on January 19, 2026. Angie de Silva/Rappler Leandro Leviste once vowed that his solar energy franchise would 'end energy poverty by 2022.' Look where we are, and where he is. While former senator Bong Revilla spent the weekend free after a court order that granted him bail on Friday, July 31, Senator Loren Legarda and son Batangas Representative Leandro Leviste had to deal with what their critics would consider a comeuppance moment. The Ombudsman announced it’s in the preliminary stage of investigating them for possible graft and plunder charges over Congressman Leviste’s unfulfilled solar energy projects. Even just a surface search on the issue would yield a timeline and a story that now put into context the decisions and actions made by mother and son this year, particularly the senator’s consistent support of the Duterte bloc’s power plays in the upper chamber and the congressman’s staunch and visible admiration for impeached Vice President Sara Duterte. It all makes sense, based on this timeline: In December 2018, barely four months after it was filed, the House of Representatives approved the franchise for Leviste’s Solar Para sa Bayan Corp, which sought to allow the company to operate renewable energy systems in underserved areas for 25 years. At that point, Leandro’s mother was a key ally of then-president Rodrigo Duterte and chair of the Senate’s finance committee and member of the rules committee that decides on the agenda and bills. In this story, we took a deep dive into how swift the passage was, and the critical concerns raised by other lawmakers, energy stakeholders, and business leaders. Some points are worth retelling here: It was then-congressman Arthur Yap (Bohol) who filed the franchise bill in August 2018. Traditionally, it’s the chairperson of the House committee on legislative franchises (not Yap) who sponsors such measures. In less than a month, a House panel recommended the grant of the franchise. Yap was already on his last term in Congress, and he later ran for Bohol governor in 2019 in a well-oiled campaign that beat Duterte’s own Cabinet secretary at the time, Jun Evasco, by a hairline. Duterte’s energy secretary then, Alfonso Cusi, was also a vigorous backer of the franchise, calling it a “positive disruption” in the energy sector. Cusi is now being investigated by the Ombudsman for allegedly conspiring with mother and son to defraud the government through Solar. In May 2019, the Senate approved the franchise, despite opposition from some senators, such as Franklin Drilon and Panfilo Lacson, who said it violated existing laws and gave undue advantage to the company. In July 2019, then-president Duterte approved Solar’s franchise to “construct, install, establish, operate, and maintain” distributed energy resources and microgrids in “underserved areas” in specific provinces in the Philippines. Leviste was ecstatic. He vowed that through this, his company would “end energy poverty by 2022.” That was supposed to happen four years ago. Look where we are, and where he is. In January this year, the Department of Energy slapped Solar with a P24-billion fine for failure to meet commitments. Solar and its affiliates had been given show-cause orders, but developers failed to submit reports that would have shown sustained construction activity. Leviste’s continued ownership of Solar, as of January this year, raised questions of conflict of interest since he won as Batangas representative in the May 2025 elections. This story tackles the issue in depth. By the Ombudsman’s own estimates, Solar’s terminated contracts resulted in more than P10.44 billion in unpaid obligations. Of course, the context is not lost on us. Last year, Leviste went high profile in blasting the flood control corruption scandal under the Marcos administration, even making an exposé about it. After a key figure in the scandal, former public works undersecretary Cathy Cabral died, Leviste claimed to have been given a copy of the so-called Cabral files. But as Val Villanueva pointed out: “By targeting the present government’s public-works apparatus while leaving largely untouched the Duterte-era political ecosystem that accelerated his own rise, Leviste’s crusade begins to look less like neutral reform and more like political force projection. Anti-corruption becomes selective. Transparency becomes asymmetric.” Read more in Val’s Thought Leaders piece. Val tracked Leviste’s “rise from clean-energy wunderkind to political crusader,” a case study of “how power, permissions, and timing intersect” in the economy. “Backed by a dynastic pedigree, enabled by Duterte-era political capital, and capped by a multibillion-peso exit to Meralco, the SPNEC-Solar Philippines saga exposes how clean energy can be financialized ahead of performance — and how ‘performance politics,’ when layered onto unfinished infrastructure, becomes not reform but a new market risk that the public ends up paying for.” Read more about Leviste’s gambit in this piece. Here are some of Rappler’s bests that you shouldn’t miss: Axel Cainglet and Miriam Grace Go report that while Bong Revilla may have been allowed temporary freedom last Friday, a company that lists his younger sister as president was awarded 67 projects worth P4.72 billion by the Department of Public Works and Highways over the last nine years. Rappler’s research team contextualizes the vague claims and bold declarations that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made in his recent State of the Nation Address. Lance Spencer Yu explains how the proposed removal of system loss charges could affect your power bill. Meralco chair Manny V. Pangilinan warns that the industry may not be able to absorb this. Val Villanueva looks into the flawed system that has allowed consumers to bear the brunt of system loss. Christa Escudereo traces the pro-China attacks against popular content creator LANS after her visit to Pag-asa Island. Lance Spencer Yu reminds us of the much-hyped Maharlika Fund, which has barely made any investments. LINKS – Rappler.com Rappler’s Best is a weekly Rappler+ exclusive newsletter of our top picks delivered straight to your inbox every Monday. Visit rappler.com/newsletters to subscribe. The views expressed by the writer are his/her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Rappler. How does this make you feel? Loading