President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday slammed the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) for its handling of the recent island-wide blackout on Panay Island, accusing it of failing to act during a crucial window that could have prevented the crisis.

The blackout, which began on 2 January and lasted for several hours, affected millions of residents and businesses across major cities and provinces on Panay.

In a video message posted on Facebook, Marcos expressed his concern over the significant hardship caused by the outage, highlighting the disruption to businesses, livelihoods, and even healthcare access.

"While power has been restored, the situation caused significant hardship to our people," Marcos said.

"The losses incurred are substantial, and accountability lies with the NGCP," he added.

The President pointed to NGCP's failure to act during a crucial two-hour window before the system collapsed, despite the Independent Market Electricity Operator of the Philippines' (IMEOP) warnings.

He said this was not the first time a massive blackout occurred, referencing a similar incident in April 2023 that prompted an investigation into NGCP's performance.

"Regrettably, NGCP failed to resort to manual load dropping, a missed opportunity that led to this crisis," the President said.

He also criticized the missed deadlines for the completion of interconnection projects that could have improved grid stability, specifically the Panay-Negros-Cebu interconnection originally promised in August 2023 and the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection now pushed to late January this year.

While acknowledging the efforts of distribution utilities and cooperatives in mitigating the impact of the blackout, Marcos focused on NGCP's responsibility to maintain grid stability and proactively address breakdowns.

"The accountability lies with the NGCP. They are tasked with grid stability. Stability involves proactive responses to breakdowns and unexpected events, a duty that NGCP unfortunately has not fulfilled adequately," he said.

He called for increased transparency from NGCP to its stakeholders, regulators, and the public, urging them to identify and address weaknesses in the transmission system for a more resilient power infrastructure.

"I have also directed the Energy Regulatory Commission to complete the reset of NGCP's rates without further delay," Marcos declared, "to ensure compliance with regulations and prevent any attempts to delay necessary measures."

"Our commitment is to the well-being and prosperity of every Filipino, and we will work diligently to prevent such crises in the future," he added.

Transmission backbone

The inability of the NGCP to build a robust transmission backbone that can withstand disruptions resulted in the total blackout across Panay Island. This calamitous event cost Iloilo City at least P2 billion in four days.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Energy Secretary Raphael Perpetuo Lotilla said it was the NGCP, not the operators whose power plants unexpectedly failed, that should be blamed for the prolonged power interruption.

Lotilla decried the NGCP's inaction during a two-hour window to proactively call on the distribution utilities and electric cooperatives on Panay to reduce their load and prevent a sub-system-wide collapse.

"It is most lamentable that this island-wide blackout was preventable. From the time that a generator had an unscheduled breakdown past noon of 2 January, NGCP did not do anything as the operator of the system responsible for maintaining the stability and integrity of the transmission grid," Lotilla said.

"The loss of supply covering more than 15 percent of the power generated from Panay Island should have alerted NGCP to call for a manual load reduction. A previous incident in April 2023 should have served as a lesson to take extraordinary precautions due to the fragility of the grid," he said.

Weak grid

Energy Undersecretary Sharon Garin said the simultaneous tripping of six power plants was due to a weak grid.

"The NGCP is saying that those were unplanned outages and that either there was maintenance or the system was weak. Six plants can't be on maintenance shutdown at once, so it's really because of the grid's automatic tripping," Garin said.

To reprimand the NGCP, the DoE recommended to Congress that the review of the transmission operator should include the separation and transfer of the systems operation function from the NGCP.

It also suggested that the ERC be given the power to impose administrative penalties on the transmission concessionaire of P2 million per day of violation or non-compliance with regulatory rules, or one percent of the cost of the delayed project based on the ERC-approved project cost, whichever is higher.

The lawmakers should also reassess the special tax privilege given to NGCP, which pays only a three-percent franchise tax instead of national and local taxes.