“YOU cannot call for better system planning when you are the sole grid system operator.”
This was the call by Anakalusugan Partylist Representative Ray Reyes after the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) released a statement on the unplanned power interruptions that wrought havoc on the island of Luzon last week and on Panay Island last April, finding their statement “sorely lackluster.”
Last Thursday, Reyes filed House Resolution No. 966, urging the appropriate committees of the Lower Chamber to investigate in aid of legislation the failure of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines and the Energy Regulatory Commission to provide reliable power supply to the country.
“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,” according to the lawmaker.
“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?” Reyes asked.
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 lives of Filipinos who are in desperate need of life support services and medical attention during the peak of these summer months.
According to Reyes, 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?” Reyes added.
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