MANILA, Philippines?(UPDATE) The House committee on energy has endorsed a proposal for the government to invoke a provision in the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) that would allow the National Power Corp. (Napocor)to secure new power supply to mitigate the worsening power crisis in Mindanao.

At the end of Monday?s four-hour hearing, Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez moved that the committee recommends President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to act by declaring that there was an actual and acute shortage of electricity.

With this, she would call for a special session of Congress to pass a joint resolution to address the Mindanao power problem under the rules and regulations set by Congress.

The committee recommendation is in support of Energy chief Angelo Reyes?s proposal to declare a power crisis would allow the government to invoke Section 71 of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) and enable state-run Napocor to buy or lease roughly P5.5 billion worth of modular generation sets to augment the power supply in Mindanao.

The generator sets can be made available in one month, but these will be ?very expensive sources of power,? Reyes said.

Rodriguez said both the administration and opposition representatives were supportive of granting Arroyo emergency powers through the Epira.

He added that he expected the resolution to be approved despite opposition from House Speaker Prospero Nograles and committee chair Pampanga Representative Juan Miguel Arroyo, who left the hearing before Rodriguez?s motion was approved.

He said the special session should be called no later than March 8 or 9 or it would be too late for the government to act on the power crisis.

?This is long overdue and I wish the President will immediately act on this,? Rodriguez said in a phone interview, adding that this has been raised as early as last year during hearings in the chamber.

But he said the special power given to the President should only be up to June this year, as the rains, which would fill up dams used in generating electricity, are expected to come by then.

Rodriguez?s statement came amid earlier opposition from leaders of the House of Representatives of the proposal of Reyes to give emergency powers to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to address the power crisis in Mindanao.

?I think he has enough powers as energy secretary to act on the crisis. I see no need for it,? Nograles said in a text message.

In a separate reaction, deputy minority leader and Bayan Muna party-list Representative Satur Ocampo said the government must not commit the same mistake when it gave then President Fidel Ramos the same power to deal with independent power producers (IPPs) in 1992.

?The folly that ensued from the exercise of power?the unjust IPP contracts?should not be repeated. The IPP deals burdened both the government and the consuming public with paying at high cost of power produced by the IPPs,? said Ocampo, who is running for senator in the May elections.