TACLOBAN CITY— Tired of repeatedly explaining the increasing frequency of power outages, electric cooperatives in Eastern Visayas are asking the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to explain to the public the successive implementation of Manual Load Dropping (MLD) in the region.

In a letter to NGCP President Anthony Almeda on Thursday, the Federation of Rural Electric Cooperatives in Region 8 (FRECOR 8) requested the NGCP to hold a press conference at the soonest possible time “to directly address the mounting public clamor” over the outages.

FRECOR 8 said the Visayas Grid has been placed under recurring Yellow and Red Alerts throughout 2026, with the 22nd Red Alert issued on Tuesday.

NGCP has regularly explained in its daily advisories that a Red Alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement, while a Yellow Alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

In its Red and Yellow Alert status advisory on Friday, NGCP said factors that contributed to the situation included the unavailability of three large coal-fired power plants and limited power imports from Mindanao.

NGCP also explained that 10 plants were on forced outage in August 2026 — one plant since July, three since June, seven since May, one since March, three since 2025, two since 2024, two since 2023 and one since 2021. Meanwhile, 16 plants were operating at derated capacities, resulting in a total of 979.6 megawatts unavailable to the grid.

For FRECOR 8, however, these outages have not been directly and publicly explained by NGCP to electric consumers.

“Our member-consumer-owners have endured these interruptions with patience, but patience is no longer enough,” the group told Almeda in its letter.

The group said it had already raised the same concern in an earlier letter dated 15 May 2026, when it demanded accountability from NGCP regarding its ancillary services.

FRECOR 8 said that while it continues to press for a written response from NGCP, electric consumers are entitled to hear directly from the grid operator the facts and background behind the recurring MLD implementations, the current state of grid reliability in Eastern Visayas and the concrete measures being undertaken to prevent their recurrence.