MANILA: Five power plants supplying electricity to the Luzon grid went offline, knocking out power in Metro Manila and nearby provinces and raising concern about widespread blackouts on election day.
The blackout started at 1.51pm, about an hour before President Aquino was to hold a command conference with police and military officials regarding security preparations for the May 13 elections.
The outage prompted the President to call an emergency meeting on the power supply situation for the midterm polls.
Both the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) and Malacañang assured the nation that there would be sufficient power supply for the elections, allaying fears that blackouts would pave the way for poll fraud.
“Rest assured this won’t happen on election day,” Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said. “We have no reason to believe that it is sabotage.”
“It’s all systems go. We are ready for any eventuality come election day,” said Primo Alonzo, head of Meralco’s Systems and Control.
Alonzo said Meralco would deploy generators to polling precincts, especially at night when votes are being counted.
In case of line trouble and power outage on election day, the public can text Meralco’s Halalan Text Numbers.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr assured the public that the elections will not be derailed by blackouts.
He said the Comelec has generators on standby in every municipality and the voting machines have batteries that could last up to 12 hours in case of a power outage. He said a blackout would show the efficiency of the machines.
A total of 3,700 megawatts went offline and remained down.
“The interruption was due to power supply deficiency. All efforts will be exerted to restore power as soon as possible,” Meralco said in an announcement.
Team Energy, in an advisory, said the line tripping was due to external factors.
“The interruption was due to power supply deficiency. All efforts will be exerted to restore power as soon as possible,” Meralco said in an announcement.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
