Due to continous criticisms from industry stakeholders, APEC party-list Representative Sergio Dagooc called for the restructuring of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to improve its efficacy and efficiency.
In a report by Inquirer, Dagooc said the ERC needs to hire more staff and deal with the lengthy approval procedures that have hampered the energy industry.
During the House of Representatives’ committee on Energy deliberations on proposed amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001, Dagooc stressed ERC’s delayed handling of applications from generation companies and distribution utilities, as well as its lack of accountability in addressing significant power outages, including the Panay Island outage earlier this year.
The major power outage caused billions of dollars’ worth of economic losses.
The APEC representative said that even though it had already been months since the outage, the ERC had not yet released its findings, and the responsible electricity generation companies are being spared by the commission.
Earlier this year, Panay Island fell dark following the shutdown of several power plants. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) first indicated that the outage was limited to power plants on Panay Island, but it was later revealed that the disruption had extended to the entire Negros-Panay grid.
