The ice cream melted

ICE CREAM peddlers in Panay Island suffered with the New Year hangover victims. The heat resulting from the blackout melted the ice cream and worsened dehydration.

Iloilo City alone sustained an estimated P1.5 billion in losses after three days without power. Industries and businesses that have no power generators could not operate.

Magnify this damage by calculating the suffering of the other cities and provinces of Panay, sustained in part by fish storage and distribution, and the economic fallback is nothing short of a stinking mess.

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Two major issues continue to pester the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).

There is the security risk of the country’s power transmission network being run by a corporation 40% owned by Chinese nationals. Also in the spotlight are the huge dividends being distributed to shareholders despite the dire power situation across the islands.

In May last year Sen. Raffy Tulfo, chairperson of the Senate committee on energy, said he told President Bongbong Marcos of his recommendation to cancel the franchise of NGCP in the face of violations.

This was in the context of the power crisis then enveloping the island of Mindoro.

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The country’s transmission system was being run by a government corporation before Gloria Arroyo’s ascent to power.

This was privatized in 2008 after a consortium won the public bidding administered by t he National Transmission Corp. The winning group was composed of the State Grid Corp. of China (40%), and local groups Calaca High Power Corp. ( 30%), and the Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. (30%).

That was the highest stake China could take because of the Constitutional provision limiting foreign ownership to 40%.

NGCP is reported be raking in profits since 2009. More than P200 billion have allegedly been distributed to shareholders.

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Was privatization the correct way to go? Is it wise to rethink NGCP’s franchise considering its lifetime of 50 years?

It can be argued that there is a state of emergency in the transmission sector.

Article XII, Section 17 of the Constitution provides that “in times of national emergency, when the public interest so requires, the State may, during the emergency and under reasonable terms prescribed by it, temporarily take over or direct the operation of any privately owned public utility or business affected with public interest.”

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NGCP enjoys a natural monopoly. Power generators have no alternatives in transmitting power to distributors.

There is no question that power transmission is invested with utmost public interest, and that negligence in this case is res ipsa loquitor.

Everyone suffers from outages, from the infant to the most senior, from the ice cream maker to the hotel operator. It affects the community at large. One day of power blackout in a major island like Panay is akin to economic sabotage.

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A take over is essentially temporary. Or the threat of it can be real as both houses of Congress deliberate on the propriety of delegating this power to the President through specific legislation.

Iloilo City mayor Jerry Treñas correctly appealed to the Senators to identify those responsible for the outage. “I ask you this time, find someone who is guilty, hold them accountable and let them pay,” he said./