GenSan to activate special power body

Gensan City Vice Mayor Shirlyn Bañas-Nograles

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, (PNA) -- The city government is set to activate a special body that will lead the formulation and implementation of various strategies that will address the city’s power supply problems. Vice Mayor Shirlyn Bañas-Nograles said such move was based on an ordinance recently passed by the city council that sets the establishment of the city’s local power resource planning and advisory board. She said the board will mainly spearhead efforts to address problems related to the city’s continuing power supply shortage.

“It will ensure the availability of quality, reliable, secure and affordable power resources for the area,” said the vice mayor, who authored the ordinance. City Councilor Franklin Gacal Jr. acted as the principal sponsor of the ordinance while councilors Ramon Milleza and Dominador Lagare III were co-sponsors. Under the ordinance, the advisory board will be headed by City Mayor Ronnel Rivera while the vice mayor will act as its vice chairperson. Its membership will include city council members, city department heads and representatives of a duly recognized association or federation of electrical engineers in the city, the local chapter of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the General Santos City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. and South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative (Socoteco II).

The vice mayor said the advisory board will be tasked to formulate the city’s local power resource management program. It will be tasked to examine, whenever appropriate or necessary, the financial statements of any electric cooperative and private-owned distribution utility that are doing business within the city, she said. Nograles said the board will enjoin any electric cooperative or distribution utility concerned towards the proper management and placement of all power grid and distribution systems located within the city, including all necessary components, to ensure that these facilities are neatly kept intact at all times and that these do not pose any obstruction to traffic or threaten public order, health or safety. It will ensure the efficient and effective implementation of the distribution code, the grid code as well as all other similar or related rules and regulations pertaining to the generation of electricity or distribution of electricity within the city, she said.

The official said it will represent the city government in all meetings, forums, assemblies, hearings or other similar or related conferences called by the Department of Energy, the Energy Regulatory Commission or any other national government agency in matters pertaining to the implementation of Republic Act (RA) 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001.

This city and parts of nearby South Cotabato provinces are presently experiencing daily rotating brownouts lasting two hours and 30 minutes due to a power deficit affecting the Mindanao grid. In late February, local distribution utility Socoteco II was forced to implement rotational brownouts of seven hours in two settings daily for each of its two feeder groupings after its power deficit rose to around 40 MW.

The supply cuts, which were implemented by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, were caused by the reduced capacity of the NPC’s hydroelectric plants in Bukidnon and the Lanao provinces. The electric cooperative serves this city, the entire Sarangani Province and the municipalities of Tupi and Polomolok in South Cotabato.