Santiago open to granting Aquino emergency powers, but…

MANILA, Philippines–Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago is in favor of giving President Benigno Aquino III emergency powers to address the looming power crisis by summer of 2015.

“I am in favor of granting emergency powers to President Aquino, and we have to give him the presumption of good faith,” Santiago said in a briefing Wednesday.

She, however, said that the duration of emergency power should be limited to just six months.

“Generally there is no emergency for one year. We give him the power, but only for six months or so, one year is too long of emergency powers of this nature,” Santiago said.

She further pointed out that there will no longer be enough time to build power plants to make up for the power shortage in time.

“We have to prevent the blackout,” she said.

Santiago pointed to the lack of foresight of the respective Committee of Energy in both houses of Congress.

“They should already have foreseen the possibility, lack of foresight. [It’s likely there will be a] price increase. That’s the price we have to pay for the lack of foresight,” she said.

 Originally posted at 12:33 pm | September 17, 2014

RELATED STORIES

Aquino asks Congress for emergency powers

5 senators support emergency powers