• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental Third District Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez is seeking a separate House inquiry into billions of pesos in ancillary service charges paid by electricity consumers in the Visayas, complementing a broader investigation into the region’s worsening power supply crisis filed by Deputy Speaker and Bacolod Rep. Alfredo “Albee” Benitez.
Javi Benitez, together with 11 other Visayas lawmakers, filed House Resolution No. 1430 on Sept. 7, directing the House Committee on Energy to determine whether the reserves consumers paid for were actually available and delivered during repeated red alerts in the Visayas grid.
The resolution, co‑authored by Negros Occidental 5th District Rep. Emilio Bernardino Yulo and other Visayan solons, complements the measure filed by Deputy Speaker Benitez before the House Committee on Visayas Development, which seeks to investigate continuing power shortages, recurring yellow and red alerts, and the reliability of electricity supply in the region.
Under HR 1430, the Committee on Energy would examine how much Visayas consumers paid for ancillary services month by month, who received the payments, and how much reserve capacity was actually procured, available, scheduled, and dispatched during each red alert.
Ancillary services refer to standby power reserves procured by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines to respond to sudden power plant outages and spikes in demand. The cost is passed on to electricity consumers.
The inquiry comes amid repeated grid emergencies. As of Sept. 3, the Visayas grid had recorded 30 red alerts and 93 yellow alerts this year.
On July 8 alone, 1,092.8 megawatts of capacity were unavailable due to forced outages and deratings, triggering manual load dropping in several areas of Cebu, Mactan, Aklan, Antique, Bohol, Capiz, Guimaras, and Iloilo.
Another 938.9 megawatts were unavailable on August 26, with 32 power plants on forced outage. Red alerts also returned on September 2, 3, and 4, resulting in rotating interruptions in Cebu.
Benitez said the inquiry aims to establish whether consumers received the service they were charged for.
“Every centavo of this charge is passed on to the consumer, so every centavo has to be accounted for,” he said.
The resolution would require the NGCP, Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines, distribution utilities, electric cooperatives, and generation and ancillary service providers to submit records of charges, payments, and reserve delivery.
It would also examine whether penalties were imposed on providers that failed to deliver scheduled reserves and whether consumers should receive refunds for services paid for but not delivered.
The measure further seeks firm timelines for power generation, storage, and transmission projects intended to address the Visayas supply shortage, including reinforcements to the Cebu‑Negros‑Panay corridor and planned battery energy storage facilities.
Benitez also wants the inquiry to determine the causes of delays in these projects and examine the extent of solar power curtailment in Negros.
The House probes come as the Visayas continues to face supply constraints, with new baseload power projects not expected to come online until 2028.
Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker Benitez’s broader inquiry is expected to focus on the underlying causes of the region’s recurring power shortages and the measures needed to ensure a more reliable and stable electricity supply. | GPB
