PRESIDENT Duterte has ordered the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to ensure no additional brownouts will happen this year, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said on Monday.
According to Roque, Duterte stressed the point during his meeting with NGCP officials last week.
However, he noted that the private firm in charge operating the country’s state-owned power grid had told the President it has no control over energy supply issues, which caused power outages last month.
The rotating brownouts were attributed by the Department of Energy (DOE) to the unauthorized maintenance work in some power plants in Luzon, which led to insufficient power supply in the area.
“They have the legal basis to purchase power but it is only to promote stability of the grid; it is not to provide further supply to the grid,” Roque said of NGCP’s explanation.
During the meeting, Roque said the President also raised NGCP’s expropriation of the Social Security System’s (SSS) six-hectare property in Pasay.
“The officials of the NGCP could not justify why they went for expropriating six hectares [of] land when all they needed was 2,000,” Roque said.
“But they apparently gave the President an assurance that they will not proceed with that particular expropriation in Pasay,” he added.