THE chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy confirmed over the weekend the assurance given by government authorities that there will be no power outage during the May 13 national and local elections even as they anticipate more brownouts ahead due to “thinning reserves.”
“We did not get a firm assurance that there will be no more brownouts,” Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said, citing energy officials’ admission in last week’s committee hearing of thin reserves in case of supply shortage. “Manipis ang [We have a thin] supply,” he said.
The senator pointed out, however, that the committee considers as the main issue the “faltering power plants that are not being penalized and still get to pass on the burden to consumers.”
“That is what came up at last week’s energy committee hearing,” he said, adding, “There will be brownouts, but we will have continuous supply on election day.”
Still, Gatchalian admitted his frustration over the energy authorities’ failure to give a firm assurance of continuous power supply.
“We were disappointed because we wanted a firm assurance there will be no brownouts,” the senator said, stressing that he was rejecting “alibis.”
Gatchalian stressed that the Department of Energy (DOE) is mandated to impose penalties on power providers “if there is failure to supply.”
The lawmaker lamented that, while he acknowledged claims that the problem was due to low power reserves, “it is the consumers who are made to suffer.”
The senator confirmed the committee is working on proposed new policies to penalize “unreliable power suppliers.”
“They should fix their plants,” he added. At the same time, Gatchalian indicated that he will conduct follow up hearings by the Senate Committee in the course of crafting remedial legislation to address energy issues.
“We will look at possible
collusion [by energy players],” he said, hinting this will likely lead to
tighter legislation against anti-competition
practices. “We cannot let it pass; we will look into it.” Gatchalian signalled
that “if the fact-finding shows it [supply shortage] was made up to jack up
rates, their licenses should be revoked,” referring to power providers he did
not identify. “This is why we need fact-finding to verify their claims.”