Senator Sherwin Gatchalian urged the National Electrification Administration (NEA) to ensure all electric cooperatives (ECs) comply with the requirements of the Electric Cooperatives Emergency and Resiliency Fund (ECERF) law to mitigate the adverse impact on power supply during natural calamities such as typhoons.
“The goal of ECERF is not just to provide funds that ECs can tap for the restoration and rehabilitation of ECs’ damaged infrastructures following a fortuitous event such as typhoon but to ensure that the distribution utilities are resilient to withstand calamities,” Gatchalian, vice-chairperson of the Senate committee on energy, said.
The ECERF was put in place as a ready fund that can be tapped by ECs for faster restoration of electricity and power facilities damaged by natural calamities. The fund is administered and managed by NEA.
Gatchalian, the principal author of the ECERF law, said ECs are required to submit on an annual basis vulnerability and risk assessment (VRA), emergency response plan (ERP), mitigation plan (MP) and resiliency compliance plan to NEA.
He said ECs are required to submit the accomplished or implementation status of the respective mitigation projects they identified in their respective VRAs and MPs.
The senator said that as the Philippines is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change risks and natural disasters, ECs should develop their resilience to prevent power interruption or at least shorten the period of such incidents during and after calamities.
NEA requested a budget of P200 million for the implementation of ECERF for next year.
Meanwhile, NEA reported that at least 24 ECs nationwide reported hefty potential losses in the wake of severe tropical storm ‘Kristine’ after initial estimated cost of damage to power infrastructure reached P70,251,981.09.
NEA administrator Antonio Mariano Almeda said the affected ECs were working tirelessly to bring their power distribution operations back to normal as soon as possible.
Task Force Kapatid (TFK) was recently activated to augment manpower for the ongoing restoration efforts in the hardest-hit co-ops.
He said the repair of damaged distribution lines continues in the franchise areas of ECs in Albay (Aleco), Batangas (Batelec I), Camarines Sur (Casureco II and III), and Pangasinan (Panelco I).
The Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association, Inc. (Philreca) noted that majority of the ECs cited flooding and line obstructions among their biggest challenges in the restoration process. Other problems were attributed to generation and transmission issues.
Almeda said damage assessment in the storm-hit ECs is still incomplete as additional reports are still coming in, especially in areas that remain flooded.
He assured that actions continue from the NEA and EC allied organizations to mitigate potential heavier losses.
