Most underreported major event in campaign season

We share with equal seriousness Amando Doronila’s concern over the Mindanao power shortage (“Mindanao power woes and media brownout,” Inquirer, 4/8/13), relatively the most underreported major event in mainstream news media with the May 13 elections fast approaching. He cites the current crisis/disaster as an opportunity for media to raise the issue of accountability with the Aquino administration as it asks the electorate for a fresh vote of confidence in the way it manages the country’s economy, by voting for its senatorial bets.

We cannot agree more with Doronila. Pursuant to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), the Department of Energy issued Circular 2003-12-011, enjoining all the distribution utilities in Mindanao, the Visayas, and Luzon to supply adequate, affordable, quality and reliable supply of electricity.

In other words, government owes it to the Filipino to ensure that there are no power outages and that electricity is affordable. The power crisis, therefore, is unacceptable to the people of Mindanao.

To achieve these twin objectives, the Epira also mandates the Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure that power rates recover only the just and reasonable costs of the service of power utilities; the National Electrification Administration to strengthen the technical and financial viability of rural electric cooperatives; and the Joint Congressional Power Commission or JCPC (now co-chaired by Sen. Serge Osmeña and Rep. Henedina Abad) to see to it that the Epira is properly implemented.

With these provisions of the law, the Mindanao power crisis is a telling manifestation of the gross failure of those government agencies to fulfill their Epira-mandated tasks. Had the Mindanao electric cooperatives diligently complied with their mandates, the power crisis would have been prevented and the island’s economic gains protected. The cooperatives and their support agencies should be made accountable for their failure to fulfill their obligations under the Epira.

At any rate, we also see an opportunity for media and the administration to call for unity among the political and economic leaders of Mindanao; unity will be a good, strong starting point in the search for solutions to problems plaguing the electric power industry.

—PETE L. ILAGAN,

president,

National Association of Electricity

Consumers for Reforms Inc.,

[email protected]