15 Feb Consumer Advocates Call the Government to Deal with the Power Transmission Bombings in Mindanao Seriously
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Last year’s bombings of transmission towers in Mindanao caused shortage of electricity affecting consumers in every city. Alarming yet the government and the forces are challenged in negotiating with the landowners where the bombings and the taken down towers were located. With this, consumer advocates are asking the government to set about a solid stance in dealing with the bombing of power transmission towers and right-of-way issues which happen to threaten the energy security of the Mindanao Grid.
Mindanao Coalition of Power Consumers (MCPC) was invited by the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy Rep. Reynaldo V. Umali to share its statement and ideas on the Inter-Agency Action Plans to deal with the bombings and right-of-way (ROW) of transmission facilities in Mindanao. It will be in a consultative meeting that’ll happen on February 17, 2016, 9AM Wednesday, to be held at Mindanao University of Science and Technology in Cagayan de Oro. MCPC president Engr. David A. Tauli has confirmed that they have received the invitation.
Among the consumer advocates’ recommendations was the passage of a national law that prohibits planting of trees and construction of structures within the Line Rights-of-Way on any existing power transmission and distribution lines directing the Philippine Army to execute such law in Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte and in other provinces. MCPC also recommends the appointment of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to pledge responsible for the security of the transmission lines and recognize the culprits behind the bombings of transmission towers. In addition, they are also urging the President and the Comelec to command the Engineering Battalions of the Philippine Army to cut down all trees within the Line ROW of the transmission lines found in specific provinces.
As said by MCPC Corp. Sec. Clint Django Pacana, the NGCP should be complimented for the efforts exerted by its people to address the problems. On the other hand, Pacana is disappointed with the National Power Corporation (Napocor which is now the Power Sector Assets & Liabilities Management Corporation or PSALM) for no action has been carried out from them towards the problem despite the fact that NPC-Mindanao is losing millions of pesos of revenues each day because of the 2 hydroelectric plants (Agus 1 and Agus 2) which can’t deliver power generations to consumers due to the outage of all transmission lines connecting the hydro plants to the grid.
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