Anger Over Power Lack

N. Cotabato, Kidapawan Folk Lash At Napocor

By ALI G. MACABALANG

April 26, 2012, 5:54pm

MANILA, Philippines - Residents of North Cotabato and Kidapawan City will observe a “day of mourning” to vent their anger over the worsening power crisis in the province and other parts of Mindanao.

City Administrator Rodulfo Cabiles Jr. told Catholic station dxND they expect thousands to join the protest action that will be held before end of the month. The Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco), which serves all 17 towns of North Cotabato and Kidapawan, earlier said it was forced to ration power in the province because of the limited supply from the state-run hydro-electric plants in Lanao del Sur and Bukidnon.

“We have six to eight hours of rotating brownouts in Kidapawan City and surrounding towns and because of it the economy has been declining,” Cabiles said.

Establishments, including internet cafes, that are heavily dependent on electricity said they are close to shutting down because of the long outages.

The city council earlier said it may sue the National Power Corp. (Napocor) for disregarding public clamor to allocate to the city and the province 25 percent of the more than 100-megawatts generated by two geothermal plants.

Kidapawan Vice Mayor Joseph Evangelista said that while North Cotabato and Kidapawan depend largely on the electricity supplied from Lanao and Bukidnon by Napocor through the Cotelco, the 25 percent from the two geothermal plants could help make up for the shortfall.

Evangelista, who presides the city council, said Napocor’s refusal to give the city and the province its share of the energy breaks a 20-year-old agree¬ment that obliges the firm to supply the province with enough electricity from the two geothermal plants.

He was referring to the memorandum of agreement between the prov¬ince and Napocor signed before the two geothermal plants were built in the 1980s, to ensure that local consum¬ers would benefit “first and foremost” from the geothermal resources from Mt. Apo.

The city council is preparing a petition for a writ from the judiciary to compel Napocor to abide by its obligation.

“We are to wage a legal battle against the Napocor. The power crisis now being experienced in North Cotabato is already very serious. It has been damaging the local economy,” Evangelista said.

Earlier, North Cotabato Governor Emylou Talinio-Mendoza affirmed technical arguments that the power crisis in Mindanao is “artificial,” as she called for a class suit against Napocor and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) said it welcomed President Be¬nigno Aquino III’s decision to do away with the privatization of the Agus and Pulangi hydropower plants in power-strapped Mindanao.

Malacañang’s move was an¬nounced earlier this week by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Chairman Luwalhati Antonino.

According to FDC, the President’s decision acknowledges the popular and broad opposition to sell the Agus and Pulangi as manifested in the re¬cent Mindanao Power Summit.

“The MinDA announcement will help shift the direction of policy solu¬tions to the power supply problem in Mindanao as well as on the national scale towards a state and public model of developing power generation in the country as FDC has long advocated and struggled for,” FDC National President Ricardo Reyes said.

However, the group said it “takes exception” to the MinDA alternative proposal to set up a Mindanao Power Corporation to manage the Agus and Pulangi plants.

“First, while the proposed Min¬danao Power Corporation is a state entity, the alternative must be mod¬eled in such a manner that public ac¬countability, control and transparent governance are established. This is to avoid the irregularities and mis¬management that characterized the National Power Corporation,” Reyes said.

He said the equity participation of the consumers, the electric coopera¬tives in the area and the indigenous communities must also be taken into account.

Another key issue for the FDC is ensuring that the management and development of the alternative model are geared toward making electricity accessible and affordable to the farm¬ing, working class and indigenous communities and households that are still either without electricity or cannot afford electricity in Mindanao.

“And fourth...a public body (should be) formed to craft the final shape of the alternative body and that such body should include representatives and experts enlisted by consumers, electric cooperatives, the academe, and the indigenous communities apart from the business sector, the LGUs (local government units) and National Government agencies,” Reyes said.

The FDC has been very vocal over contentious issues regarding electric¬ity, particularly the removal of value-added tax (VAT) and the review of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 or the EPIRA law.     source