CEBU, Philippines - The province of Cebu will host a national power summit aimed at bringing together stakeholders, policy makers, government officials, private sector representatives, and power investors to help address the looming power crisis in Mindanao and other areas around the country.
It will be a consultative assembly of all stakeholders around the country to be held by May in Cebu which is a strategic location for those who will be coming from Mindanao and Luzon, said Capitol Consultant Rory John Sepulveda.
By gathering said stakeholders and closely examining the root cause of the power problem in Mindanao and subsequently crafting a viable solution to solve the issue, Sepulveda said Cebu and the rest of the country will also be protected from the looming power crisis.
"We can not just send power to Mindanao because our power here is "sagad na (full capacity)." We don't know what the real score for the Visayas will be in the coming days," said Sepulveda.
He stressed that emergency power is not the "only good solution" for addressing the looming power crisis in Mindanao, and said the power summit will not only give the real picture of what is really happening in Mindanao but will also gather inputs from stakeholders on all possible viable solutions.
As of now, Sepulveda said he has yet to see any concrete action being undertaken to address the power crisis in Mindanao except the "usual buck passing and the possible granting of emergency powers to the President."
Underlined the Capitol consultant, "We should lead, we should have an all-stakeholders summit to see what's really happening."
For her part, Garcia said Mindanao can very well learn from the Interruptible Load Agreement (ILA) that has been implemented in Cebu since 2009, with the participation of the business sector, particularly major private corporations in the province during power shortage.
Cebu averted a looming power crisis in 2009 with Garcia asking all power stakeholders to sign an agreement with the provincial government in effecting said ILA.
The participating firms, now considered as interruptible load customers, agree to use their own generator sets at certain hours of the day to ease the strain on Cebu's limited power supply. This strategy proved successful in dealing with the province's power problems in 2010.
The provincial government brought to Cebu some 15 megawatts excess power from Iloilo-based Panay Power Corporation to the Cebu-Negros-Panay Grid for distribution by the National Power Corporation.
