PHL now on first phase of power crisis: expert

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY – The Philippines has already entered the first phase of the impending power crisis which would take its toll against the national government’s plan to realize a sustainable economic growth and improve lives of over 92 million Filipinos, an energy expert from the University of the Philippines National Engineering Center said here recently.

Prof. Ronald del Mundo, an engineering professor of the UP-NEC and an international energy consultant, said the worst power crisis in the country is expected to happen the next four years but most parts of the country, especially Visayas and Mindanao as well as some parts of Luzon, are now experiencing signs of the crisis, thus, the need for the national government to start refocusing its goals of putting up more power generation plants.

Worst, del Mundo added the country’s power woes is also affected by the existence of more than 200 service contracts previously issued by previous officials of the Department of Energy which are now obstacles in the implementation of more renewable energy projects that could help address the power crisis.

According to him, instead of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) or Republic Act 9136 achieving its goals of giving people with lower power rates, it totally failed to do so considering that the Philippines has now the highest power rates charged to consumers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Because of the problem on high power crisis being charged to consumers, the UP professors revealed most multinational companies operating in the country have already closed their operations and migrated to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries which charge lower power rates thereby posing a serious threat to the country’s desire to achieve better economic growth and which might result to the mass displacement of workers.

Del Mundo claimed the industry growth of Vietnam annually is from 16 to 20 percent compared to the country’s single digit growth which is now being threatened by the closure of several big industries operating in urban areas in the different parts of the country.

He explained the absence of new power plants in the country today is now the major problem that the power industry is facing considering the rapid growth in the demand for quality power, thus, the impending power crisis that could seriously affect efforts to bring the country’s economy to greater heights.

The EPIRA was enacted into law purposely to provide competition in the power generation industry and improve the transmission and distribution sectors but the existence of alleged monopoly in the power generation industry coupled with the absence of new power plants has failed the law in is purpose of giving Filipinos cheap and affordable power.

He stressed the proposal to auction electric cooperatives is a dangerous ploy by the energy department which might open the floodgates of further monopoly in the distribution aspect of power, thus, such plan of the national government is considered to be ill-advised.