ENERGY CHIEF SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE
FOR POWER CRISIS - LOREN

The current electrical power crisis would not have hit the country if the Arroyo administration had not been so preoccupied with trying to hold on to political power, NP-NPC-LDP vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda said on Monday, following reports of the power situation in Northern Luzon.

"And what is the Energy secretary doing now? He's busy trying to stay in government service by running under the party-list system," Legarda said. "What kind of service then can the marginalized sector, which he purports to represent, expect of him? Isn't he the one responsible for the current crisis?"

Long before the electoral campaign started, Legarda has been warning of the damage El Nino could do to country, particularly with the drought that has now started to dry up not only the supply of food but also water, on which power generation also depends.

In recent statements, she hit at the administration for lack of political will and foresight that has made many predictable situations into what could have been preventable emergencies.

"Why is every situation for this administration an emergency?" Legarda said during her campaign in the Visayas last week. She was reacting to reports that some lawmakers are considering granting the President emergency powers to combat the effects of El Nino.

"Many of our so-called emergencies would not have caught the administration us off guard if only it had the political will and foresight to prevent such emergencies from creeping up on us in the first place," Legarda, an environmental protection advocate, said, noting that she had long been warning of the dire effects climate change could have on the country.

"That's why some disaster programs turn out to be disasters themselves," she said. "We have become so used to stop-gap, patchwork measures. So now our unpreparedness is forcing US to adopt such emergency measures, such as giving our farmers dole-outs for food so that they can work properly to feed us."