Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 2) — The Senate Committee on Energy will conduct a probe into the rotational power outages that have affected thousands of homes in Luzon in the past few days.
“I will heed to the recommendation of Sen. Koko Pimentel to conduct another in-depth, comprehensive investigation on this matter (power outages) as well as looking for long-term solutions,” committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian said during a Senate plenary session on Wednesday. However, he did not say when the inquiry will take place.
Senator Pimentel earlier took the floor to recall a hearing of the Energy Committee in April where Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi was in attendance. During that hearing, Pimentel said the secretary gave assurances there was “no high risk” of power shortage in the summer.
“From the hearing, I got the guarantee that there will be no power outages, and yet ito na naranasan na natin [we are experiencing it now] and then the statement is that by June 8, 2021 we can expect everything will be back to normal so how believable will this statement be now?” Pimentel said.
Gatchalian reported that on Tuesday, 339,000 households, 90 barangays, and 16 towns and cities were affected by the blackouts.
In Valenzuela City, where the senator resides, Gatchalian said there were two vaccination sites affected, forcing potential vaccinees to manually register for their appointment instead of the usual digital approach. This caused more delays, eventually prompting people to forego their vaccination due to the longer wait in the summer heat, Gatchalian added.
Energy officials have said the power interruptions were due to thin supply and growing demand. They said the outages would continue only until Monday next week to allow maintenance work, but they added that backup is available for storage of COVID-19 vaccines.
