LOCAL government officials of Panay Island yesterday demanded accountability and compensation for the economic losses that their provinces incurred during the January 2 to 5 power outage.
During yesterday’s hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Energy, Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas, and Guimaras Gov. Carlos Nava said agencies which were remiss in ensuring a stable power supply in the island should be held accountable for the losses that they suffered during the three-day blackout.
Defensor said the power interruption caused P3.8 billion in economic losses to Iloilo province.
“We have suffered P3.8 billion damage that is loss of load translated to economic loss, Mr. Chairman. We, in Iloilo and the rest of Region 6, we’re positioning to take legal recourse to vindicate the rights of our people and so that they can be compensated for the damage done,” Defensor told senators during the motu proprio hearing called by Sen. Raffy Tulfo, the committee chairman.
Defensor, who was physically present at the Senate during the hearing, said the people of Iloilo would like “to exert strongest pressure” to the stakeholders “so that the blackout will not happen again.”
“We are here to plead for an immediate solution to the problem because we in Iloilo and the rest of Region 6, we are in danger of this happening again. This happened last April of 2023. It happened several days ago, and it can happen again,” he added.
Treñas, who was virtually present during the hearing, said those who will be found accountable for the massive power outage “should be made to pay.”
“The Senate and the House of Representatives, together, to punish those who are accountable, and to hold them accountable for the losses, especially in my beloved city. Who will pay for those who slept in the plazas, who slept in barangay gyms? Do you want that to happen also to you?” he said.
“So, I ask you this time, find someone who is guilty and hold them accountable and let them pay,” he added.
The NGCP said it followed protocols set by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in responding to the multiple plant shutdowns in Panay that led to the island-wide power interruption last January 2.
NGCP said its records and system data show that there was no abnormality in the system voltage in between the shutdown of the first unit of the Panay Energy Development Corp.’s (PEDC) coal power plant at 12:06 p.m. and the subsequent shutdown of the Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) coal plant at 2:19 p.m.
NGCP said that under Section 6.2.3.4 of the Philippine Grid Code (PGC), in instances where there is an unplanned outage of a plant but the system remains stable, “manual corrective intervention should not be imposed to anticipate the occurrence of a second event.”
It explained that disengaging loads manually or disconnecting thousands of households from their supply of power as recommended by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) in anticipation of a subsequent grid event is prohibited under the PGC.
“There was no system indication justifying a manual load drop or disconnecting end-users — households, business, industries — from the system to regulate voltage during the two-hour period. Had we disengaged loads without any trigger from the system, we may have also been questioned for doing so, as this clearly violates the PGC. Our actions at the time of the incident were undertaken within protocols and in compliance with established rules,” the NGCP said.
Citing system records, NGCP said the January 2 incident was due to the unplanned outages of multiple power generators in Panay Island, triggered by the unexpected shutdown of PCPC’s 135 megawatts plant that eventually cascaded to other plants in the island.
“While NGCP was ready to transmit power as early as January 2, it took PCPC 59 hours to synchronize back to the grid at 1:33 a.m. of January 5. PCPC declared stable operations shortly before 1:00 p.m. the same day, or almost three days after it shut down. Once PCPC operations stabilized, the supply of power to Panay consumers also stabilized. No power supply incidents in Panay have been reported since,” the company said.
NGCP added that as a highly regulated entity closely monitored by the ERC, violations may be penalized by the regulator.
“We want to be part of the solution, but NGCP cannot do it alone. We need the cooperation of other stakeholders and the support of our regulator, policy makers and the whole of government, to ensure the stability of transmission services that will support the reliable power supply for Filipinos,” NGCP said.
STEADY POWER SUPPLY
Defensor said there are two things which the people of Iloilo are asking proper authorities to do to have a steady power supply — that the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and other concerned agencies “perfect the management of the national grid because there is no room for mistake,” and that vital infrastructures for the transmission of electricity be completed at the soonest possible time.
“What is important is that our grid must be able to withstand the trips and the disturbances, and the anomalies — physically and management wise. That is the reason why we seek for compliance with these two things, Mr. Chairman. A national grid without a backbone is not a national grid, Mr. Chair. A national grid with an unfinished backbone is a weak national grid. So, if we don’t address these matters, the blackout will happen again,” Defensor said.
Nava, who was physically present during the hearing, said the province also suffered “not less than” 60 hours of brownouts last year due to scheduled and unscheduled outages.
He said concerned agencies should inform the provincial government of the status of “swinging reserves” of electricity since around 30 percent of their electric bills go to ancillary services.
“So, this is met to prevent incidents like this, and paying that much on a monthly basis to guarantee incidents like these could not happen, I think, is too much for us consumers. So, I think this should be put in a review on top of the other problems that were confronting right now,” Nava said.
He said concerned agencies must immediately come up with measures that will prevent similar massive brownouts from happening again.
“This is not new, this is recurrent, and this may be persistent. And I agree that it is high time that we resolve this as soon as possible,” he added.
Tulfo said the NGCP and other agencies should stop finger pointing as to who should be blamed for the Panay Island power outage, and instead admit what their shortcomings were and come up with immediate solutions to prevent future brownouts in the area and elsewhere.
Sen. Francis Tolentino said NGCP should be “transparent and accountable” with what happened.
“The NGCP’s failure to immediately acknowledge the shortcomings in managing the Panay outage further erodes trust and raises concerns about their commitment to transparency in addressing systems issues within their operations,” Tolentino said.
He also urged stakeholders present during the hearing “to amplify its transparency efforts for its users.”
At the House, Rep. France Castro called for the nationalization of the power industry, saying the public cannot rely on a “greed-driven private (power) sector.”
To prevent a repeat of massive blackout in Panay Island, she said it would be best to nationalize the power sector “so that service, not profit, is the primary motive of the utility.”
“With what’s happening now in Panay because of the private energy sector, profit is the leading motivation of the NGCP, generation companies and distribution utilities like the MORE Electric and POWER Corp. of the Razons but when something goes wrong what happened with the blackout, everyone was quick to wash their hands even if these three components of the electricity sector are connected and there are ways to avoid or limit the blackout that happened,” she said.
Castro said generation firms were primarily responsible after their plants failed, particularly Unit 1 of the PEDC which had boiler feed issues. — With Jed Macapagal and Wendell Vigilia
