Senators are now taking measures to conduct a probe and mete out punishment for the thinning of power supply across the entire country.
Yesterday, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issued red and yellow alerts in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
In a report by the Inquirer, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian expressed concern, as surprisingly, even the Mindanao grid had been put under a yellow alert despite the region boasting of excess capacity.
Gatchalian said that it had been proved time and again that the month of May received higher demands of 3% to 5%, which meant that the public would experience more power interruptions if the power plants didn’t go on line.
Gatchalian then called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to promptly investigate several forced outages of power plants and the reserves that the NGCP should have maintained.
He also requested a probe into the inaction of the government in addressing the problems brought about by El Niño.
Meanwhile, Senator Francis Escudero also nudged the DOE and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to exert influence over the generation companies (gencos) to ensure they had been following their scheduled stages.
Escudero added that these gencos should be obligated to explain the reasons behind the forced outages and be held accountable for any unreasonable or unjustified outage due to negligence.
Senator Risa Hontiveros also called on the DOE for an explanation, as consumers held the brunt of rotational brownouts and the increasing energy bills.
