MARCOS: NO ARTIFICIAL POWER CRISIS IN PH

President Ferdinand ''Bongbong'' Marcos Jr. on Monday said there is no artificial power crisis hounding the country despite the almost daily red and yellow alerts being declared on Luzon and Visayas grids. 

''No, it definitely is not an artificial crisis, dahil talagang the power systems are overloaded. Ang naging consumption natin biglang tumaas talaga, because of the, dahil napakainit,'' Marcos said in an ambush interview in Pikit, Cotabato.

Marcos said the government continues to monitor the country's power supply. '

''We’re continuing to monitor the price and we’re continuing to encourage and to endorse all of the programs of NGCP (National Grid Corporation of the Philippines) so that they will increase the coverage of their transmission lines all over the country,'' he said. 

The Department of Energy earlier said the April 2024 unplanned outages in over 32 power plants was record-setting, with 1,811 megawatts of power lost or more than double the previous average of 700 megawatts of power supply lost from 2019 to 2023. 

Minority lawmakers in the House of Representatives have called for an inquiry into the red and yellow power alerts in Luzon and Visayas grids amid the unplanned outages of over 32 power plants.

“It is imperative to conduct a thorough investigation into the actions of generation companies during plant failures, to determine the extent of their responsibility in the current energy crisis and to hold them accountable for any exploitative practices that harm consumers,” the lawmakers said in House Resolution 1690.

The House members also said that legislation should be enacted to prioritize consumer protection, address the root causes of the energy crisis, and implement measures that prevent the exploitation of power shortages for profit.

Those who filed the resolution were House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro of ACT party-list, House Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas of Gabriela party-list, and Kabataan party-list lawmaker Raoul Manuel. —KBK, GMA Integrated News 

This article Marcos: No artificial power crisis in PH was originally published in GMA News Online.

2024-04-29T09:04:42Z dg43tfdfdgfd