Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday, May 24 took the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to task in penalizing power-generating plants that may have breached their reliability index.

Gatchalian’s call came in the face of looming rotating power outages, placing Luzon and Visayas on red and yellow alert status due to the spike in demand amid the hot season.

“The continuing red and yellow alert status is a critical warning that we urgently need to increase capacity in the country to meet our economic growth targets,” Gatchalian said.

“The DOE and the ERC must demonstrate determination by penalizing power-generating plants that may have breached the reliability index and rigorously investigating unplanned and forced outages,” he pointed out.

Aside from this approach, the senator said the entire power industry should aggressively work towards the immediate resumption of operations of power-generating plants. 

Gatchalian also said he sees the need to start cloud seeding efforts to mitigate the circumstances.

“To restore the operation of hydroelectric plants, cloud seeding must be initiated without delay,” he said.

“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,” he added, 

Gatchalian insisted the government clearly has to step in and put a stop to the rotating power outages and ultimately affecting the country’s economy. 

“Hindi na maaaring magpatuloy ang ganitong sitwasyon. Ang kailangan ay agarang aksyon at pagtutulungan upang malampasan ang krisis na ito (This situation should not go on. What we need now are concrete actions and the need to help each other overcome this power crisis),” he said.