Tripped circuit breaker cuts Senate AC during majority no-show
MANILA, Philippines — A tripped circuit breaker caused the Senate’s air conditioning to shut down while minority senators waited for Monday’s session to start amid the absence of all majority senators, including Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, the chamber’s maintenance office said.
READ: Tulfo hits ‘no aircon, no Wi-fi’ during Senate majority bloc no-show
In a letter addressed to the Senate secretary on Tuesday afternoon, the service chief of the Senate Maintenance and General Services Bureau said the air-conditioning maintenance unit inspected the centralized air-conditioning system and coordinated with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) after receiving reports of a sudden rise in temperature inside the session hall at around 6 p.m. on Monday.
According to the bureau’s service chief, the power supply for the Air Handling Unit (AHU) electrical panel boards is located at the GSIS.
Upon coordination, the GSIS confirmed that an electrical circuit breaker at its premises tripped at around 5:30 p.m.
“Upon checking, some other AHUs on the Ground Floor and Third Floor experienced the same power issue. The Senate centralized air-conditioning was restored around 6:20 p.m.,” the bureau service chief said.
However, the bureau said it is still awaiting the GSIS’ official incident report on the matter.
Minority senators had been waiting for two hours for Monday’s session to start when the air conditioning suddenly shut down.
This happened on the same day Sen. Jinggoy Estrada surrendered to authorities, backed by the rest of the majority senators.
Cayetano also posted on social media that day, calling on the minority to join the majority in maintaining the Senate’s independence.
While the maintenance office attributed the outage to a tripped circuit breaker, the incident was reminiscent of what occurred in 2020 at the House of Representatives when Cayetano was about to be replaced as House speaker.
The session hall at the Batasang Pambansa was also locked, while electricity and Wi-Fi were cut off. /mcm
