ILOILO City – In response to the widespread power blackout that affected Panay Island, including Guimaras and parts of Negros Occidental, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy has scheduled a hearing for Thursday, Jan. 11.
The blackout began at 2:19 p.m. on Jan. 2 and continued with rotational brownouts until the morning of Jan. 5.
On Jan. 4, Cong. Lord Allan Jay Velasco, chair of the Energy Committee, sent a letter to lawmakers from Western Visayas announcing the second deliberation on the power outages in Panay/Western Visayas (House Resolutions 933, 934, and P44).
The committee’s first hearing was conducted on Aug. 15, 2023, following an earlier blackout in April 2023.
The deliberation is set for 9:30 a.m. at the Ramon V. Mitra Building’s Conference Rooms 3 and 4, Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City.
This initiative by the House of Representatives followed requests from Panay Island leaders, led by Iloilo City’s Mayor Jerry Treñas and other lawmakers, for a congressional inquiry into the blackout.
Cong. Lorenz Defensor (3rd District, Iloilo) highlighted the inconvenience caused by the blackout. He criticized the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and power generation companies for unscheduled shutdowns and called for appropriate penalties.
KABATAAN party-list’s Rep. Raoul Danniel Manuel, a resident of Iloilo City, expressed disappointment over the prolonged blackout and demanded transparency from NGCP.
He also raised concerns about the alleged prioritization of big business areas in power restoration over residential areas.
Mayor Treñas requested that the House inquirybe held in Iloilo City, specifically at the provincial capitol, to highlight, he said, the collective indignation of the Ilonggos towards NGCP’s “incompetence”.
NGCP, a privately-owned corporation, operates and maintains the country’s state-owned power grid under a franchise issued by Congress.
The letter from Velasco setting the inquiry was addressed to Iloilo 5th District’s Cong. Raul Tupas, Iloilo City’s Cong. Julienne Baronda, Iloilo 2nd District’s Cong. Michael Gorriceta, Negros Occidental 3rd District’s Cong. Francisco Benitez, Iloilo 3rd District’s Cong. Lorenz Defensor, USWAG Ilonggo party-list’s Rep. James Ang Jr.; Santa Rosa, Laguna’s Cong. Dan S. Fernandez; KABATAAN party-list’s Rep. Raoul Danniel Manuel; GABRIELA party-list’s Rep. Arlenes Brosas, and ACT TEACHERS party-list’s Rep. France Castro./PN
