Gas and Coal Economics, page-11

The contracts are designed to incentivize investment and they cover capital recovery, that is why Meralco average price paid for power is so much higher than marginal prices in WESM. For a generator, once you have a contract, you are indifferent to actual dispatch for the most part, but you need to be available. The exception is the Malampaya plants which because of TOP on the gas supply, are dispatched out of merit order - that is, they are must run. So it isn't that these contracts put an LNG plant out of the money - it is that without such a contract, you are exposed to WESM and that market trades lower than marginal LNG prices most of the time.

.... and fortunately I am retired.