Power outages in Mindanao minor, did not affect polls, says regional body

DIGOS CITY, Philippines – Minor power interruptions or outages hit at least three Mindanao areas on Monday but these had barely affected the conduct of the balloting, the Mindanao Development Authority (Minda) reported.

In an emailed report, which was also furnished the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Minda said the power outage that took place in Barangay Luinab in Iligan City until 1:15 p.m. was caused by a fallen electric post.

The power interruption in Luinab did not have any effect on the voting in Iligan City as there were no polling precincts in the area, Minda said.

Malacañang’s development arm in Mindanao also said “several far-flung villages” of San Isidro in Davao del Norte also experienced power outage for nearly an hour starting 11:47 a.m.

Minda did not say what caused the disruption of electricity supply to the villages but added that the Davao del Norte Electric Coop. (Daneco) was able to restore full power supply by 12:33 p.m.

Also, for five minutes, power went off in Zamboanga City “due to a transient fault along distribution line,” according to the government agency.

On Saturday, Minda issued an assurance that Mindanao would not be experiencing outages due to power shortfall on Monday because there was actually a projected surplus.

Romeo Montenegro, Minda’s director for investment promotions and public affairs, said based on the forecast made by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Department of Energy (DoE), Mindanao would actually experience a surplus of about 204 megawatts.

Since late February, the 21.8 million people of Mindanao have been experiencing power outages – lasting up to eight hours in some areas – due to the low level of water at Lake Lanao. The lake fires up the Agus hydropower plants, which along with the Pulangui hydropower system in Bukidnon, provides about 70 percent of the island’s electricity supply.

“The power demand in Mindanao on Monday is pegged at around 1,126 megawatts while the projected supply is at 1,330 megawatts,” Montenegro said.

But Montenegro said technical problems could cause power outages.

“Although we’re comfortable that measures had been put in place to ensure that Mindanao will have enough power supply on Monday, we can’t discount any possibility of outages arising from various causes,” he had said then.