By: Marlon Ramos - 04:56 AM February
19, 2020
MANILA, Philippines — China’s
40-percent stake in the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) did not
give them direct control over the country’s power transmission network, top
NGCP officials said on Tuesday.
Putting his foot down on the issue,
NGCP president and CEO Anthony Almeda said the daily operations of the
5,000-strong company, including its engineering and technical divisions, had
been under an all-Filipino team as he dismissed claims that Chinese nationals
were at the helm of its management.
For the nth time, the top NGCP
executive maintained that the country’s power distribution system was safe from
foreign intrusion, rejecting speculations that China could remotely shut down
the system through NGCP’s foreign partner, the State Grid Corp. of China.
“At the end of the day, it’s [just]
us and … we will always protect the grid for the next several years. That’s
what I can assure you,” Almeda said during a roundtable interview with a group
of Inquirer reporters and editors.
‘I
take control of everything’
“I will [state] this very clearly.
I’m the one in charge of the company. Whether it [concerns] national security,
I take full responsibility for it. Whether there’s a Chinese [employee in our
company], I take control of everything,” he stressed.
“And we have a [management] board
that’s 60 percent [owned by Filipinos]. So we control the board [and] whatever
decisions we make,” he added. “I can assure you 100 percent that (NGCP) is
controlled by Filipinos. You can take our word for it.”
Almeda said NGCP’s majority owners,
business tycoons Henry Sy Jr. and Robert Coyiuto Jr., were “active” and “very
strong” in steering the company’s operations.
When asked about the cause of their
rift with certain government officials, Almeda said: “Nobody questioned how we
manage our company [before]. It’s just now because there are people who are not
friendly to us.”
“But we will just have to move on
and do our work every day. We will just answer all the issues,” he added.
The NGCP had been under scrutiny
recently after senators raised concerns over the possibility that China, which
had been embroiled in a maritime dispute with the Philippines and other
countries in the South China Sea, could shut down the country’s power
distribution system with just the push of a button.
Melvin Matibag, president of the
state-run Transmission Corp. of the Philippines (Transco), told a Senate budget
hearing in November last year that it was “possible” to control the NGCP’s
operation “given the technological advancement right now in
telecommunications.” He did not elaborate.
No
access via internet
But NGCP spokesperson Cynthia
Alabanza insisted that the company’s supervisory control and data acquisition
system (Scada), which runs the grid, is a stand-alone and self-contained unit
that cannot be accessed through the internet, contrary to Matibag’s claim.
“You would have to call at the very
least 200 substation managers and have them shut off several breakers in each
of these substations one by one so it’s not one button and it’s not remote. It
has to be done manually,” Alabanza had said.
She also assailed Matibag’s
statements to the media and the Senate, dismissing them as “mistruths” about
the NGCP’s operations.
“We have always played by the rules
since day one,” Alabanza said.
Transco used to run the country’s
sole power grid until 2009 when NGCP won the bidding for its entire operations
and management, making it one of the biggest privatization projects of the
government.
Matibag’s claim prompted Sen. Risa
Hontiveros to seek a “security audit” of NGCP to check if the Chinese really
had access to the country’s power transmission system.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the
energy committee, had also expressed similar apprehension after learning that a
certain Wen Bo, a Chinese national, had previously occupied a high managerial
post at NGCP.
But Ronald Dylan Concepcion, NGCP
assistant corporate secretary, said Wen only briefly worked in an “advisory
capacity” as the company’s “chief technical officer” during the early stages of
their takeover of Transco’s facilities.
He said the role of “foreign
technical partners” in NGCP’s operations was actually a requirement of the law
and that their Chinese personnel had the necessary work permits from the
government.
“To tell you the truth, we have a
number of Chinese employees when we started. Since 2015, there are now only
four Chinese (nationals) who sit on the board. But only three of them are
staying in the country in ‘advisory capacity,’” Concepcion said.
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