Senate on Noy powers: No rush

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate won’t be rushed into passing its version of a resolution granting President Aquino emergency powers to address an imminent power shortage in summer next year, Senate committee on energy chairman Sergio Osmeña III said yesterday.

Osmeña said he saw no need to immediately approve the joint resolution, which the President certified as urgent and was approved by the House of Representatives the other day.

The senator said that if the purpose of granting special powers to Aquino is to make the interruptible load program (ILP) work, such power is unnecessary because the program is already in place and working in Cebu and Davao.

“Very generally, in order to obtain additional generating capacity, we are authorizing the President to do what? I don’t know what they are authorizing the President to do,” he said. “But they are just saying that, we are hereby exempting companies that join the ILP from certain laws. There’s the VAT law, the Biofuels Act, but we don’t need this. We don’t have to give those exemptions at all.”

In his previous statements, Osmeña said that several big corporations and industries with generator sets have committed to participate in the ILP without any incentive except for a guarantee that the government would shoulder the costs of running these generators.

The ILP requires companies or big establishments with generator sets to run them at certain hours on any given day whenever the supply at the grid is low, in order to reduce the demand for power and free up some for households.

Since the generators run on diesel fuel, the companies would have to shell out money otherwise invested or spent on something else.

Misled president

Osmeña said the President was apparently misinformed about the situation, hence his pushing vigorously for the approval of the joint resolution.

“Because the President is being misled. He does not really know power, so he relies on people who don’t know power either,” he said.

“But believe me, we will have 1,600 megawatts. If we do not have 1,600 MW, that’s beyond already the control of the Senate, it’s up to God,” Osmeña said.

Through the ILP alone, Osmeña said 1,000 MW of power would be made available to small consumers without burdening the grid.

He said that the Ilijan power plant operated by KEPCO in Batangas could generate as much as 600 MW as long as certain conditions are met, which he said the Senate intends to address in its own version of the joint resolution.

Osmeña said that the Senate’s version would also give powers to the President, but such powers would be very different from ones being pushed by the House.

In the case of the Ilijan plant, Osmeña said the Senate would push for the exemption of the plant from the Biofuels Act so that it could run on pure diesel and generate more power during the critical months.

“Because biofuels are very dirty and they have to clean the plant right after using the biofuel and it takes them five days to clean the plant. Let’s exempt them from that, it’s a very small price to pay,” Osmeña said.

Osmeña noted that KEPCO also lacks a storage facility for diesel fuel if ever its plant is allowed to run on pure diesel. He said the resolution of the Senate would also cover this issue.

He said that the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) would have to carry the cost of providing storage facility, which he estimates would run to less than $1 million.

“We should not let PSALM end up holding the financial bag there. So we will be authorizing the President to use the Malampaya Fund,” Osmeña said.

Osmeña said that the Malampaya Fund would also be tapped to finance the dredging of the Pasig River in order to address the fuel delivery issues of the Malaya power plant in Pililia, Rizal.

One unit of the 600 MW Malaya thermal power plant is undergoing rehabilitation and should be ready by the end of the year.

Once the two units run on full capacity next year, Osmeña said a fuel delivery system must be in place to ensure that operations are uninterrupted.

Since the fuel pipeline between Batangas and Sucat was already shut down, Osmeña said delivery of fuel to Malaya now has to be done through barges along the Pasig River.

“But Pasig River has since silted so much that unless you dredge, it will be hard to get the barge up. Because it’s an energy-related issue, the President can get that out of the Malampaya Fund,” he said.

“We can pass the resolution authorizing that even in February, that will be perfectly fine. There is no time to pass it this year. And besides, it is completely unnecessary anyway. We’ll just pass it next year. If it were necessary, we would have passed it already,” he added.

Checking abuses

At the House of Representatives, committee on energy chairman Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali said lawmakers would be on guard for possible abuses in the exercise of emergency powers granted to President Aquino.

“We can’t help but there could be abuses, just like in any other law, but we will be on top of the situation,” Umali, who also co-chairs the Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC), said. “The JCPC will continue to function precisely to oversee the implementation of this so we will avoid excesses.

“We did not dissolve the technical working group of the JCPC so that it will continue to function to foresee its implementation, so we will avoid excesses or abuses,” he said.

The chamber passed on Wednesday Joint Resolution 21 that suspended certain laws and authorized the allocation of funds to allow Aquino to establish additional generating capacity.

He said the JCPC will regularly meet with concerned government agencies and industry stakeholders to monitor the implementation of the joint resolution apart from getting monthly updates from Aquino as mandated by the measure.

The emergency powers will be in place from March to July unless otherwise revoked by Congress.

Umali estimates that the ILP will cost P200 million at most during the five-month period that the emergency measure is in effect, if the shortage is at 300 MW.

The Department of Energy said there is no actual shortage but only shortfall in reserves. Umali said reserves are much needed in summer when power plants often break down.

With the suspension of environment laws during the period, it is possible that the government would have to resort to “dirty power” to address any shortage. He said this is something that the people may just have to bear.

“For example, even if this plant has an emission problem, we will allow it just for the five-month period, after that, we will no longer allow it to operate because it has a problem,” Umali said.

“What we’re saying is that, if we’re in a crisis, we can’t be choosers,” he said in Filipino.

He emphasized, however, that based on his data, there would be no need to tap problematic power plants in the event of a shortage.