Cebu solon demands accountability amid grid instability

Representative Karen Hope Garcia of Cebu’s 3rd District filed House Bill 1439 on Friday, urging the House Committee on Energy to summon top energy officials and power utility executives to address the region’s worsening power crisis.

The measure seeks to compel representatives from the Department of Energy, the Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines and major power generation and distribution utilities to present a comprehensive assessment of grid stability and electricity pricing.

Garcia pushed for the legislative inquiry to determine the operational status of regional power plants and investigate whether systemic failures are being passed on to consumers through inflated utility bills.

The lawmaker raised alarm over recent projections indicating household electricity rates could jump by as much as 70 percent, with Cebu rates potentially spiking from roughly P11 to nearly P19 per kilowatt-hour.

“The public deserves complete transparency and accountability,” Garcia said, adding that ordinary families should not serve as a financial cushion for planning deficiencies and power supply breakdowns.

The proposed inquiry would direct energy officials to submit unit-by-unit outage histories for power facilities across the Visayas grid to verify if plant breakdowns stem from legitimate mechanical failures.

It would also review DoE findings on generation facilities and check whether show-cause orders or administrative penalties have been issued to noncompliant operators.

Daily electricity demand in the Visayas region has reached 2,700 megawatts, with Cebu accounting for half of that load at 1,350 megawatts. The regional grid has suffered persistent instability, logging 95 yellow alerts and 32 red alerts.