STATEMENT OF SEN. WIN GATCHALIAN ON RED AND YELLOW ALERT STATUS

The continuing red and yellow alert status is a critical warning that we urgently need to increase capacity in the country if we are to meet our economic growth targets. The Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission must demonstrate determination to get to the bottom of the issue by rigorously investigating unplanned and forced outages and penalizing power-generating plants that may have breached the reliability index.

Alongside this approach, the entire industry must aggressively work towards the immediate resumption of operations of power-generating plants. To restore the operation of hydroelectric plants, cloud seeding must be initiated without delay. Corollary, industry stakeholders must collaborate intensively to increase ancillary services, mitigate the price impact on consumers due to plant outages, and expedite the addition of new capacity.

Hindi na maaaring magpatuloy ang ganitong sitwasyon. Ang kailangan ay agarang aksyon at pagtutulungan upang malampasan ang krisis na ito.