No to emergency powers for Aquino, says legislator

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MANILA, Philippines – Granting emergency powers to President Benigno Aquino III to address the power crisis would be a “dangerous” thing to do, a lawmaker said Saturday.

Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares thumbed down the suggestion, which was made in response to the widespread energy problem in the country, with Mindanao still experiencing 8-12-hour brownouts, and Luzon 3-hour brownouts.

“It is very dangerous to grant emergency powers to anyone with a dictatorial propensity like President Aquino, as can be seen with his usurpation of Congress’ power and now threatening the Supreme Court (after) it declared the Disbursement Acceleration Program unconstitutional,” he said.

In a statement, the senior deputy minority leader in the House of Representatives said the country was in a similar situation in the 1990s, when then President Fidel Ramos was granted emergency powers to address the thinning power reserves.

“But the same [emergency powers] were used instead to allow the entry of favored independent power producers (IPP) to construct power plants within 24 months.  Ramos also approved onerous supply contracts that guaranteed the government would buy whatever power the IPPs produced, forcing consumers to pay for electricity they did not even use,” he said.

Colmenares criticized the Aquino administration’s failure to resolve the energy problem and urged the President to support steps to address the power crisis and to have cheaper and affordable electricity.

“We have nobody to blame for the current thin power situation in the country but the Aquino administration because it did little to address the lingering problem for years,” he said.

The congressman said he has proposed a bill which would, among other things, prohibit the government from selling what is left of the government’s energy assets and infuse capital to rehabilitate and increase the capacity of these plants, and order the Department of Energy to use the P175 billion Malampaya fund to construct power plants especially those that utilize renewable energy.

The bill also seeks to buy back the power plants sold to the private sector, reform electric cooperatives, and institute the policy of regulation of all charges, requiring public notification and hearing before any power rate increase.

“These are just some of the steps that would start to address the power crisis and lead to affordable electricity that is geared for both the medium and long term so as not to rely on mere stop gap measures like the interruptible load program (ILP) that lead to further power rate increases,” said Colmenares.

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