Sen. Sergio Osmeña III. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—The country’s thin power reserves may be blamed on former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo only until the end of this year, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III said in a radio interview Tuesday.
“But next year, 2015, that’s already P-Noy’s fault because he should have done something in 2010 to alleviate any power problem in 2015,” Osmeña said over dzRH.
“The solution to the power shortage isn’t immediate. It needs a lead time of four to five years because you can’t put up a power plant in one month or one year. It takes 39 to 56 months to build that type. This is the basic coal plant,” he added.
Osmeña, chair of the Senate committee on energy, said putting up hydroelectric power plants would require a longer time.
Last week, Osmeña hit the headlines after he told reporters that President Aquino was a good man but an awful manager. He made the remark in the context of the country’s dire power supply situation.
Osmeña said then that he had asked Aquino to fire Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla but his advice had fallen on deaf ears. He wanted Petilla sacked after the Department of Energy failed to prevent the power shortage caused by the scheduled maintenance of Malampaya in late 2013.
He described Petilla, a former governor of Leyte, as an able manager but one whose attention was divided between his job and his political interests.
“[Many] people are really disappointed with the way things are being run by this administration because they failed to accomplish many things that could have been done,” Osmeña said.
“I told them, our chance might go to waste. We could have done this. We could have fixed this but you are too slow. Teka, teka. Puro teka, teka, kayo, [You’re always asking us to wait],” he added.
The senator said that until now, not one public-private partnership project had been constructed. “I said energy was quite important. If you don’t do it today, it will not happen.”
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