House probe into power woes sought

MANILA, Philippines — A resolution has recently been filed In Congress calling for an investigation into the failure of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and the Energy Regulatory Commission to provide reliable power supply to the country.

Anakalusugan Party-list Rep. Ray Reyes filed House Resolution No. 966, which pushes for such probe in aid of legislation.

In a statement, Reyes criticized NGCP's statement on the unplanned power interruptions that wrought havoc on the island of Luzon last week and on Panay Island last April.

"It has been clear to us for some time now that NGCP’s failure to commit to their Transmission Development Plan timeline to interconnect all the major islands in the Philippines is also one of the reasons for the country’s intermittent and unreliable power supply,” said Reyes.

“Now you are saying that there needs to be proper system planning due to the ‘confluence of events’ that occurred? How can you say that when this could have been avoided had you only acted sooner in granting those ancillary service contracts?" he added.

“You cannot call for better system planning when you are the sole grid system operator.”

DOE Undersecretary Rowena Guevara has stated on record that had NGCP finished the Visayas-Mindanao interconnection project, Mindanao could have helped in supplying power.

"Because they were unable to do so, the resulting power outages have endangered the live of Filipinos who are in desperate need of life support services and medical attention during the peak of these summer months," Reyes continued

According to the lawmaker, the reliability of power supply is necessary for the delivery of medical services and other life-affirming medical treatments, and these power interruptions caused by the lack of proper ancillary service agreements “clearly stems from NGCP’s failure to recontract these services early on.”

“What confluence of events are you passing the buck to now? The ERC? When you could have anticipated for this yearly occurrence?” he added.