Should we worry?

LAST MONTH, I’m sure most of us were barely aware—or if we were, we simply brushed it off as just another routine announcement churned out by power distribution utilities.

From August 1 to 6, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issued four yellow alerts for the Visayas–Mindanao grid. That’s four in just one week.

For the uninitiated, a yellow alert is the grid’s way of saying: “We’re cutting it close—one more problem and we’re in trouble.”

On August 5, the numbers spoke for themselves. Available supply stood at 2,528 megawatts, while peak demand reached 2,475 megawatts. That’s not exactly comforting. It’s like driving home with your gas tank hovering just above empty, hoping there’s no traffic on the way.

The Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed what many feared: 14 generating facilities shut down that day, wiping 385 megawatts from the system, while five others limped along at reduced capacity. To make matters worse, 11 plants in Mindanao also went offline, making the overall picture even grimmer.

And this wasn’t a one-week glitch. Some plants have been down since April. Six have been out since 2023—two years of lost capacity, yet still no fix in sight, with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel (pun intended). Meanwhile, six more are operating below capacity, leaving 744 megawatts unavailable.

The DOE has since ordered power generation companies in the Visayas and Mindanao to urgently restore 33 plants that are either on forced outage or derated, amid recurring yellow alerts triggered by thinning electricity reserves. Of these, 25 are offline while eight are operating below capacity. In the Visayas alone, 14 are down and five are derated; in Mindanao, 11 are offline and three derated (Bilyonaryo.com, August 2025).

What does this mean for consumers, particularly the residents of “I Am Iloilo City”?

First, we are just one step away from rolling brownouts every time the grid comes under stress. Second, and perhaps more painfully, shortages almost always lead to higher power bills.

When you open your September bill, look closely at your generation and transmission charges. Chances are, they’ve gone up. The cost of an unstable system always finds its way to the consumer’s pocket.

So, should we worry? Absolutely. What alarms me most is the pattern. Four yellow alerts in a single week should not be treated as routine. These are not minor hiccups; they’re glaring red flags, telling us our power sector is not as resilient as we want to believe.

The question is: how long can we keep balancing on this tightrope? It’s already September, and the grid is straining. If nothing changes, the coming months will be rough for businesses, households, and anyone trying to keep the lights on without breaking the bank.

It’s time we stopped treating yellow alerts as mere technical advisories. They are warning signs that the very system we depend on is buckling under pressure. Unless government, regulators, and power companies act decisively, consumers will literally keep paying the price.

Finally, according to MORE Power, “I Am Iloilo City’s” sole distribution utility, NGCP’s yellow alerts will indeed affect generation and transmission rates this September across the Visayas./PN