ILOILO City – Mayor Jerry P. Treñas asked the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to explain the hours-long Panay-wide and Guimaras blackout on Monday, Feb. 20.
The massive power interruption lasted for more than eight hours from 11:24 a.m., affecting businesses and schools in five Western Visayas provinces.
In his letter to NGCP chairman of the board Robert Coyiuto Jr., Treñas asked for a detailed advisory explaining the cause of the power interruption.
“Said power interruption, in absence of any advisory, brought inconvenience not only to the Ilonggos in and outside their homes but also affected the transactions in both public and private offices and businesses causing backlogs and missing deadlines on that day,” read part of Treñas’ letter dated Feb. 21.
Relative to this, the city mayor endorsed his communication to the NGCP to the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) through Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon, requesting for a resolution for NGCP’s detailed advisory explaining the cause of the said incident.
In an earlier advisory, NGCP pinpointed a “system disturbance” in the Panay sub grid at around 11:24 a.m. as the cause of the blackout in the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Iloilo, and Guimaras.
All power industry players from generation, transmission and distribution were affected.
Reagan Alcantara, lead specialist of NGCP’s public relations department, said on Monday they could not yet pinpoint the specific cause of the problem.
“Wala pa kita sang definite information, isa pa ina sa gina-check namon sa NGCP. Damo kita nalantaw. There are so many moving parts once the grid is working so we have to check kon diin gid naghalin,” said Alcantara.
While tracing of the cause was ongoing, he said they also focused in expediting power restoration in affected areas.
It was around 2:24 p.m. on Monday that NGCP was able to restore power transmission services.
However, NGCP warned consumers of rotating power interruptions since the supply was sourced from renewable plants.
MORE Electric and Power Corporations (MORE Power), meanwhile, was able to energize all its feeders at around 9:26 p.m. on Monday.
Other affected electric cooperatives were energized earlier or almost the same time as MORE Power./PN
