By Butch Fernandez - December 2,
2019
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, Energy
committee chairman, has played down the value of having lawmakers “inspect”
facilities of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, saying it’s the
government’s national security cluster that should take the lead in doing an
audit amid concerns China, through its state-owned corporation that invested in
NGCP, can remotely control the country’s power supply.
“We are not engineers, we’re not
scientists,” Gatchalian said Sunday in a radio interview, ahead of a planned
Senate inquiry as suggested by several senators, including himself.
Gatchalian added it is the national
security cluster, headed by National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, who
is qualified to lead the audit because they have agencies with engineers and
scientists under them, as well as “IT and cyber experts” who could assess the
risks that an outside group can switch off at will the transmission operations
of the NGCP.
The national security cluster
includes the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT),
Gatchalian noted.
Gatchalian disclosed he spoke to
Esperon just this weekend “and they’re getting the data now.”
At the same time, the senator
belittled an offer of the NGCP for lawmakers to inspect their facilities,
asking aloud, “What will we do there?” He said they’ll see the same things that
the Transco people also saw—the offices, facilities and operational manuals
they are not familiar with.
Gatchalian—later echoed by a
resolution of Sen. Risa Hontiveros—had earlier said he was flagged about the
risks that Beijing through its state-run firm, could remotely control the
Philippine power situation. While there is no evidence that this can in fact be
done, Gatchalian said it was worth checking out considering the serious
implications on the Philippines. The country has had a long-running maritime
dispute with China despite the cozier relations between the Asian neighbors
under the Duterte administration.
As for the Senate inquiry, he said
it will have two trajectories—the national security angle and the operational
angle, i.e., whether they are complying with the requirements of their
franchise and the commitments they gave the government.
Gatchalian said they are targetting
the “second and third week of December” for completing the inquiry.
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