Posted by Alena Mae S. Flores
THE stakeholders in Mindanao’s power sector are not discounting the possibility that Malacañang’s assurance it no longer will privatize the two hydroelectric plants on the island is a ploy to stop dissent as a result of the power shortage there, an official said Wednesday.
Sergio Dagooc, president of the Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives, said Energy Secretary Rene Almendraz assured his 33-member group that the privatization of the two hydroelectric power plants in Mindanao “is no longer an issue” in a meeting in Manila on April 18.
That was five days after the first-ever Mindanao Energy Summit in Davao City, where President Benigno Aquino III had said the Agus-Pulangi plants’ privatization would be pursued.
“We welcome the assurance, but at the same time we are also vigilant,” Dagooc said.
Mindanao’s power users have been resisting the government’s plan to use coal-fired power plants to serve them because the electricity coming from those would be more expensive than that supplied by the hydroelectric power plants.
Dagooc said they had met with Almendraz to discuss the establishment of a Mindanao Power Committee that would manage the hydroelectric plants after those had been rehabilitated. Mindanao Development Authority chairwoman Lualhati Antonino was in the meeting, and Dagooc said she was being eyed to lead the MPC.
Dagooc made his statement even as geothermal power producer Energy Development Corp. said it could not allocate electricity to the cooperatives in Mindanao because its contract with the state-run National Power Corp.
Mindanao remains short of electricity and must continue to endure rolling power blackouts. On Wednesday the peak demand there was 1,223 megawatts, but the power plants there could only supply a maximum 974 megawatts. With Alena Mae S. Flores
(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on /2012/May/04) source
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