Militant solon: Mindanao black-out may be a ‘phantom crisis’

Rep. Carlos Zarate. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – A militant solon expressed fears that the government would use the Mindanao black-out on Thursday as a reason to privatize more government-owned assets that would jack up prices.

Bayan Muna party-list representative Carlos Zarate in a statement Thursday even feared that the surprise power outage may be used to project a “phantom crisis” and push for privatizing more state-owned assets.

Zarate added that the people in Mindanao, home to a quarter of the country’s nearly 100 million population, “must be watchful of this and oppose this deceptive scheme.”

The main island, heavily reliant on hydropower, has been suffering from chronic power shortages especially during summer.

As of Thursday noon, at least 70 percent of Mindanao has restored power, energy secretary Jericho Petilla said in a televised interview. The agency has yet to identify the cause of the outage.