Manila Standard Today
By | Mar. 03, 2014 at 12:01am
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr, Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, who is also chairman of the House committee on energy, and Senator Francis Escudero said they will take the lead in the campaign to compel the government to address the blackouts in Mindanao, where rotating outages persist.
They said while the Epira required all government assets on energy generation, transmission and distribution to be privatized, that had not addressed the issue of providing the public with cheaper electricity.
Escudero filed a bill that seeks to amend the Epira law. The House members belonging to the Makabayan bloc also filed a counterpart bill in House Bill 351.
“I am against the privatization of the Agus and Pulangui hydro-power plants,” Belmonte said.
“I filed a bill to amend Epira. I don’t think a hearing has been held on this. I am against the privatization of Agus-Pulangui,” Escudero said.
“Epira changes centers on non-cross ownership of distribution, transmission and generation. The current system gives too much power to Meralco,” Belmonte said.
Umali said his panel would conduct public hearings in Cagayan de Oro and Marawi City on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
“We want to find out the real sentiment of the Mindanao people on the issue of Interim Mindanao Electricity Market, which, they claim brought the cost of electricity to shoot up,” Umali said.
“We will go to Marawi as requested by Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Mujib Hataman because the people are paying higher power cost despite being host to Lake Lanao where power is being sourced.”
Gabriela Rep. Luz Ilagan, who hails from Davao, said the Mindanaoans had long rejected the proposal to privatize power distribution and had been demanding instead the rehabilitation of the Agus-Polangi hydroelectric plant.
“Data show that should it be rehabilitated, it can give more than adequate supply to the whole of Mindanao,” Ilagan said.
“The thing is, certain sectors are pushing for alternative power such as coal. And guess what company has put up a coal plant in Davao del Sur? Aboitiz, the owner of Davao Light and Power and of Thermamobile and now Meralco’s source. .
Ilagan said solving Mindanao power problem was “PNoys election promise.”
“Like his Daang Matuwid that’s full of potholes, the promised light at the end of the tunnel is flickering and doomed to a total blackout,” Ilagan said.
Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon said: “We support the Mindanao lawmakers’ position rejecting the Agus-Pulangui privatization. Baseload plants such as these cannot be subject to private operation and ownership if we intend to make Mindanao power affordable to the public and industries .”
Some areas in Mindanao, including Zamboanga del Sur, are still experiencing rolling blackouts of up to four hours.
Power outages in Zamboanga del Sur have been stretched from two hours to four hours as two units of coal-fired plant in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental remain offline, according to GMA News. source
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