2 Aboitiz Power plants cited for safety standards

MANILA, Philippines - SN Aboitiz Power’s Binga and Magat hydropower electric plants gained recognition for its safety standards.

SNAP received its 2010 Safety Milestone Recognition (SMILE) award from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for logging in record man-hours without any lost time incident arising from workplace accidents.

Magat Plant received its third straight SMILE award for posting a safety record of 1.016 million man-hours from April 26, 2007 to June 30, 2010. First time recipient Binga Plant accumulated 697,303 man-hours without lost time incident covering July 11, 2008 to June 30, 2010.

The awards were handed out in a ceremony held on Dec. 15, 2010 at Makati by DOLE Undersecretary Lourdes M. Transmonte and Director Atty. Brenda L. Villafuerte of the Bureau of Working Conditions (BWC). SNAP was represented by Magat Plant Operations manager Romualdo Canadido and Safety officer Cesar Vicente, Binga Plant Safety Officer Jess Palma, and SNAP assistant vice president for Safety, Health, Environment, Security and Quality Nomer A. Reynaldo.

In a statement, SNAP chief executive officer Emmanuel Rubio said “beyond these awards, our focus is to ensure the welfare of our team members by consistently working to keep our workplace safe.”

The SMILE award is a recognition program of the BWC for companies that have at least a million safe work-hours without LTI or at least a year of operation or construction activities without any cases of LTI. The company must have complied with all Occupational Safety and Health Standards and BWC reporting requirements and has no pending Labor Case in any of the DOLE Regional and Central Offices.

The 360-MW Magat plant located at the border of Alfonso Lista, Ifugao and Ramon, Isabela is owned and operated by SNAP-Magat while the 100 MW Binga plant at Itogon, Benguet is owned and operated by SNAP-Benguet.

In October, Binga Plant was conferred with the Certification to the standard set in the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001:2007. TUV Rheinland Philippines Inc., a Germany-based provider of technical, safety and certification services conferred the certificate in early October. Magat also maintained the Certification to OHSAS 18001:2007 it received last year after a successful surveillance audit also in October.