Over 19,000 sitios in the country will be given access to electricity by 2022, a promise the National Electrification Administration (NEA) made.

“The ways of the past were already proven inadequate to the demands of the country’s growing rural economy. We have to catch up, double our efforts and ensure that our services are more than enough to drive the Duterte administration’s economic legacy after 2022,” NEA administrator Edgardo Masongsong said.

He also urged the electric cooperatives (ECs) to come up with strategies that will fasten efforts to achieve energy access for all by 2022.

“The end goal is [to ensure] that all potential consumers are energized. NEA will adjust accordingly to the strategies that the electric cooperatives will be taking in order to [keep the projects within] the proposed timeline,” NEA deputy administrator for technical services Artis Nikki Tortola said.

Data from NEA said that there are still 19,740 sitios that still have no access to power, 8, 535 sitios of which are in Mindanao, while 4,664 are in Visayas.

This year, NEA and its partner ECs are looking to electrify 1,817 sitios, 560 in Luzon, 552 in Visayas, and 705 in Mindanao.

The agency is also requesting P5-billion from the national government to finance 3,626 electrification projects under the Sitio Electrification Program (SEP) for 2019.