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SEN.
Joker Arroyo is asking a joint congressional oversight
committee to summon erring National Power Corp. (Napocor)
and Transmission Co. (Transco) officials to account for
their alleged criminal liability in the continuing power
blackouts blanketing the Bicol region.
Appearing before the Kapihan sa Senado on Tuesday,
Arroyo vowed to pursue a case of criminal negligence
against the Napocor and Transco officials for failing to
fix the Bicol power problem.
“I will
go hammer and tongs against them at the [Joint
Congressional] Power Commission,” he said, adding “we
will call them to explain right away.”
He is
asking the Power Commission, cochaired by Sen. Miriam
Santiago and Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Alipio
Badelles of Lanao del Norte, to convene a hearing on the
Bicol blackouts right after the May 14 elections.
Arroyo
suggested that the Power Commission call a hearing even
before the current Congress convenes its concluding
sessions from June 4 to 8 to grill Napocor officials on
their failure to solve the power problem in Bicol, which
hosts at least two geothermal plants that he said had
been running below its capacity for years now.
“I would
really pursue these things because these are failures of
leadership [for] Napocor and Transco,” Arroyo, who hails
from Baao, Camarines Sur, said. “As far as I am
concerned, I take this as a personal offense because
they [Napocor and Transco officials] lied repeatedly in
the Power Commission and said that things are okay.”
Arroyo
recalled earlier assurances by Napocor and Transco
officials that there was no cause to worry because there
was “excess power.”
“Remember, we were told that there is excess power? That
we are paying independent power producers [IPPs] for
power that we do not use? So, in other words, there is
excess electricity but that excess electricity cannot go
to Bicol. Why?” asked Arroyo.
He
brought up the problematic Bicol brownouts during a
recent meeting with President Arroyo in Malacañang but
Napocor chief Cyril del Callar was “nowhere to be found”
so the President had to relay her order to another
Napocor official to fix the problem immediately.
Arroyo
reported that the Bicol provinces have been experiencing
rotating blackouts daily where residents would have “two
hours with lights, two hours without lights . . . as if
the region is back in the Dark Ages.”
He
accused the Napocor and Transco officials of “criminal
neglect” for failing to provide normal power supply to
the region.
According to Transco, he said, the problem is that the
Tayabas-Naga line cannot supply electricity to Bicol
because six towers have been destroyed by supertyphoons
Milenyo and Reming, which hit the region six months ago.
“Why did
Napocor not fix it? Or rather, why did Transco not fix
them? Because of that, there is no inward flow of
electricity to the Bicol region,” he added.
Bicol,
he noted, has two geothermal plants: one in Bacon,
Sorsogon, and another in Tiwi, Albay. “Both of them are
defective. Both of them are not well-maintained. So what
has Napocor done? They have not fixed it so you have a
situation there where two geothermal plants which are
supposed to supply electricity, plus the destroyed
Transco towers that have yet to be fixed to normalize
the power situation there.” |
