Mindanao businesses losing P30M an hour due to power crisis

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  --- Mindanao’s business community has been losing some P30 million for every hour of power outage, industry leaders said.

Affiliates of the Mindanao Electric Power Alliance (MEPA) will convene in Davao City on May 18 to discuss the worsening power crisis in Mindanao, according to latest radio reports.

MEPA groups together 33 organizations --- key stakeholders to Mindanao’s power sector --- including the influential Mindanao Business Council (MBC).

The MBC is a member of the Mindanao Power Monitoring Committee, which was created in 2012 by President Benigno Aquino III.

MEPA is composed of local power distribution utilities, Mindanao-based chambers of commerce and industry, capitalists of power industries, and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

“Let us see what we can do to solve the problem,” Vicente Lao, chairman of MBC, was quoted Thursday in media reports as saying.

The MEPA has been proposing “reforms” in the power business in Mindanao since 2012, according to Lao.

Lao said the economy of Mindanao will further suffer from the power crisis in the region.

Among the Mindanao areas badly affected by the power crisis are the provinces of North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and neighboring areas in Region 12.

Vicente Baguio, spokesman of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco), said their power supply curtailment is expected to loosen up with the resumption of the operation of one of two Steag power plants in Misamis Oriental.

“We expect some increase in power supply that Cotelco is getting from this power supplier plus the augmentation supply from Therma Marine,” Baguio said, referring to the Steag power plants, and the private Therma Marine power plant in the Davao area.

Dan Zambrano, president of the Metro Kidapawan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the business sector in Kidapawan has been losing millions  in income due to the power outages.

Traders are worried that the power problems could worsen in the coming days with the decreasing level of the water at Lake Lanao, whose downstream flow propels the state-owned hydro-electric plants supplying about three-fourths of Mindanao’s daily power requirements.