HOW to address Mindanao’s power shortage will be a major issue in next year’s midterm elections as the people in the vote-rich region will be judging the candidates based on their stand on whether or not to privatize the hydroelectric power plants on the island, Senator Gregorio Honasan said Thursday.
Honasan, a former chairman of the Senate committee on energy, said he will oppose the privatization of the Agus-Pulangi hydroelectric plants.
“I have said it before and I will say it again: My position is that vital and strategic industries such as energy and power should be owned and run by the government,” Honasan told Manila Standard in a phone interview.
“The power sector should be heavily regulated by the government because it directly affects state concerns such as security and the economy.”
Honasan made his statement even as Aboitiz Power Corp. said it was investing P35 billion to add 354 megawatts of power in Mindanao by 2015 to ease the power shortage on the island that results in up to eight-hour blackouts. Mindanao needs around 1,597 megawatts daily but the power plants there were only producing 1,261 megawatts as of this month.
President Benigno Aquino III told a recent energy summit in Mindanao that the residents there must pay more for electricity or continue to suffer rolling blackouts.
Honasan said it was exactly because of the Agus-Pulangi hydroelectric plants that the power rates in Mindanao were still inexpensive as most of the electricity on the island were being supplied through these plants.
“My position is to rehabilitate these plants while initiating long-term programs to increase the sources of power in the region. We should get started on renewable energy as mandated by the RE law,” he said. With Alena Mae S. Flores
(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on /2012/April/27) source
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