Palace: Stable power supply restored in Siquijor

MANILA, Philippines — The government has restored stable electricity supply in Siquijor, in line with President Marcos’ directive to act on the power crisis that has stalled the province’s development, Malacañang said yesterday.

In a statement, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) declared that Marcos and the National Electrification Administration (NEA) have “successfully” resolved the crisis and ended days of rotating power outages in the province.

The PCO said the President had instructed NEA administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda to resolve the power crisis “without delay” and had set a June 15 deadline to restore a stable power supply in Siquijor.

“By June 14, NEA had delivered on this directive. Through close coordination with the Province of Siquijor Electric Cooperative (Prosielco), the NEA expedited repairs on power generation sets of the Siquijor Island Power Corp. (Sipcor),” the PCO said.

According to the PCO, the NEA had also facilitated the transport and installation of a generator set from the Palawan Electric Cooperative, aside from the additional rental generator sets from Sipcor.

“These efforts resulted in a dependable capacity of 11 megawatts – more than enough to meet Siquijor’s peak demand of 9 MW, with 1.65 MW in reserve for contingencies,” the PCO said. “NEA remains committed to monitoring the power situation in Siquijor to ensure that families, businesses and schools continue to enjoy reliable electricity in the days and weeks ahead.”

Last Wednesday, Marcos visited Siquijor to inspect the Siquijor Diesel Power Plant and to discuss the power supply woes of the province, which had experienced daily power outages that lasted more than five hours.

Marcos cited the need for the government to come up with a long-term solution to the problem within six months.

“We will then impose whatever new arrangements that we have to do so that six months from now, we do not have to resort to the emergency (generator sets),” Marcos had said in a media interview after his inspection of the power plant. “Six months from now, we will guarantee that there will be a long-term solution.”

In a recent press briefing, Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said Marcos had also ordered a full legal review of the deal between Sipcor and Prosielco to determine if there are lapses that resulted in the power supply issues.