4 hours of electricity a day for lack of government payments

The province’s 27 MW daily quota was reduced to 7.5 “until further notice.” According to the power supply companies, the cause of the problem is due to the state-owned National Power Corporation. Meanwhile, the population faces various difficulties: from the impossibility of washing clothes to the lack of dialysis machines in hospitals.

Manila () – In the province of Mindoro Occidental, electricity will only be available for four hours a day. This was announced a few days ago by the private cooperative Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (OMECO), which has an agreement with the only power plant in the province, the Occidental Mindoro Consolidated Power Corporation (OMCPC), explaining that it will operate “until further notice” a only generator with a capacity of 7.5 megawatts, that is, 20% of what the province needs.

Occidental Mindoro has 525,354 inhabitants, more than 20% of whom live below the poverty line, according to 2020 figures. In recent weeks, many have protested against the protracted energy crisis. “It is very difficult to heat water and iron the children’s uniforms. The laundry is piling up and the electrical appliances are breaking down,” explained one of the organizers of the demonstrations. Tomorrow a “blackout concert” is planned in the city of San José, the provincial capital, as a sign of protest.

The provincial governor was forced to suspend classes in all public and private schools for three days earlier this month, and later urged residents to use solar energy to the fullest extent possible, explaining that the energy crisis must be addressed by the national government headed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Meanwhile, hospital doctors complained of being under a lot of stress and not being able to do their jobs: “Dialysis patients and staff are under a lot of stress, especially when there is a power outage during a treatment session. dialysis,” explained Dr. Monica Bracamonte, director of a health cooperative that had to spend 3 million Philippine pesos (just over 49,000 euros) to buy generators that allow the dialysis machines to work continuously. “Having electricity and water has become a privilege,” she added, Bracamonte, and acquiring generators is no longer a temporary need, but “a necessity.”

The energy crisis in the province that occupies half of the Philippine island of Mindoro is not new: they had already begun in 2019 the first problems in connection with the signing of several contracts, and the situation has been getting worse in recent years.

The province’s current power demand is about 27 MW. Of these, 20 MW are supplied by the OMCPC, located in San José, in the south of the province, according to a resolution of March 25 of the Energy Regulatory Commission. Previously, OMECO was able to source another 4 MW from the Mamburao power plant, at the opposite end of the province, operated by the National Power Corporation (NPC), the state-owned electricity utility. However, the contract expired in December 2021 and since then the plant has not been working.

The OMCPC refuses to run its power station at full capacity, claiming that it does not have funds to purchase fuel due to a late payment of a subsidy from the National Power Corporation. Also according to the president of OMECO, Eleanor Costibolo, the lack of subsidies is the “root of the problem”.