CHIZ: PUNISH COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR PANAY-WIDE POWER OUTAGE

Sen. Chiz Escudero wants power firms responsible for the latest Panay Island-wide power outage penalized for their inefficiency that caused business losses and opportunities in the affected cities and municipalities in Western Visayas.

Escudero on Friday (Jan. 5) called on the Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to summon the officials of the Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) and the Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC) and explain in detail the massive power disruption that hit the whole of Western Visayas.

"I want them to explain the unscheduled shutting down of their plants and why it took a longer-than-usual period to bring the power supply back. For PCPC, I cannot understand why it took them four days to resupply power instead of just four hours, which is the usual time to resupply power in cases of maintenance shutdowns," the veteran legislator said.

"If their explanation is found wanting, they should be penalized for the business losses they created because of the blackouts. This is necessary so that other power generation companies or gencos will exercise more care and prudence in the operation of their plants as well as compliance with existing regulations," the senator pointed out.

Escudero said a thorough investigation is necessary to avoid similar occurrences in the future and avoid surge in prices of electricity like what previously happened in Metro Manila.

"Power has three components--generation, transmission and distribution. All three must be looked into in order to have a complete picture and not simply do finger-pointing on how to prevent a similar occurrence from happening again in the future," he said.