MANILA, Philippines?Ex-President Joseph Estrada has accused the Arroyo administration of deliberately allowing the power crisis to develop despite having prior knowledge it was looming.

Estrada said the administration ?concocted? the crisis as another means of giving kickbacks to its cronies. He also warned the power crisis could cause a failure of elections in May.

?This government is not interested in solving the problem, a problem of its own making. It precipitated the crisis precisely to give them a reason to defraud the people through yet another graft scheme,? Estrada said in a news conference Tuesday.

He said the power crisis had other dire consequences.

?The eight-hour power outages in Mindanao are bound to be there come election day, a very dire scenario that evokes all sorts of grim projections, including a failure of elections that could trigger tragic consequences,? he said.

?I don?t lightly throw accusations, but all available evidence point to this conclusion,? Estrada said.

He said Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes should resign for being incompetent.

Reyes was chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the Estrada administration who led the top brass in withdrawing support from the embattled president.

Estrada had no choice but to abandon Malacañang after that.

?He should voluntarily resign for being incompetent ? the problem is he has no knowledge about energy,? Estrada said.

He said the Arroyo administration?s solution to the power crisis would cost P20 billion to meet what he said was really a 600-megawatt deficit. His solution, Estrada said, would only cost a little more than P7 billion.

Estrada would have private firms and industries use their own generators to produce electricity.

?Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo declared a state of calamity in Mindanao. By doing so, she is allowing the national government and local government units to allocate funds for the crisis,? Estrada said.

?As if on cue, (Pampanga) Rep. Mikey Arroyo, the President?s son, proposed an allocation of P10 billion ostensibly to solve the problem,? he said.

Estrada said that of the amount, P5.5 billion would be used to lease modular generators that would produce 160 megawatts of electricity. The remaining P4.5 billion, he said, would be used for agriculture.

?I made my own computations and the result is that we need only P2.1 billion, not P5.5 billion, to lease generating sets that can produce 160 megawatts,? Estrada said.

?But why generate only 160 megawatts? The deficit is 600 megawatts, which will cost P20.6 billion to produce using their formula,? he said.

Estrada?s news conference at the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino headquarters on Shaw Boulevard generated much advance interest.

Campaign officials had said the agenda was ?urgent? and of ?national concern? and that only a few people knew what was to be announced.

This led not a few reporters to anticipate an announcement about his candidacy. There was talk of him withdrawing.

?The power crisis is an urgent national concern,? Estrada said when told about the speculation surrounding his news conference.

?Over my dead body,? he added, when asked if he would withdraw his candidacy.