The provincial government said Iloilo is in a “crisis” mode due to power outage being experienced in Panay, Guimaras, and parts of Negros Occidental for more than 20 hours.

“We are in a crisis mode. That is why we are here, we are monitoring, we want to treat the situation as under crisis because we are under crisis,” Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. said in a media interview on Wednesday, Jan. 3.

Defensor convened all department heads to get update from the provincial civil defense cluster to execute necessary protocols and monitor the situation in municipalities.

Several towns, including Calinog and Leon, have already suspended classes.

The provincial and city governments will have an emergency meeting on Thursday, Jan. 4, with the Department of Energy (DOE), National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), power generators, distribution utilities, and concerned local chief executives and stakeholders.

Defensor said the first in their agenda is to address the power crisis and to revisit the directives of the DOE to the NGCP when Panay also suffered from an outage in April of last year.

“We are grateful the (DOE) secretary has agreed and he has assured us the Department of Energy is already on this problem and they are addressing this problem,” Defensor added.

Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas, on the other hand, called on both houses of Congress to look into the cause of the power interruption.

“I am calling on our congressmen to initiate a congressional investigation of the incident since yesterday that has caused power interruption in Panay, Guimaras, and Negros. In the same way, I call on the Senate to do the same. NGCP holds a franchise from Congress and therefore is accountable to it,” Treñas said in a statement.

To date, the eight-story city hall, including the penthouse, is operating on a generator.

Cellphone charging stations are available at the Jaro Plaza bandstand, Molo Plaza and ABC Kapihan in Molo, Barangay Block 22 Hall in Mandurriao, the tennis court area in La Paz Plaza, and the Kerr and Co. building in city proper to ensure continuous connectivity.

The mayor on Wednesday suspended classes at all levels in both public and private schools, citing the lack of a “clear solution” to the outage problem.

More Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power), with a franchise area covering Iloilo City, said it has gradually restored electricity in 10 of its 24 feeders as of noon.

“The NGCP has granted clearance for MORE Power to provide 40.56 percent of the demand in Iloilo City, equivalent to 35.57 MW. There remains an unrecovered 59.44 percent of MORE Power’s franchise area without electricity supply,” the advisory read.

Meanwhile, Shirley Laurente, general manager of the Guimaras Electric Cooperative (GUIMELCO) and president of the Electric Cooperatives Association of Region VI Inc. (ECAR-VI) said she has been coordinating with other electric cooperatives in Panay and is waiting for their response on the effects of the power disturbance.

“In Guimaras, we are conducting a manual load dropping. Out of our 10-MW demand, we dropped around 2.5 MW, so our available power for Guimaras is around 7.5 MW,” she said.

Currently, the whole of Nueva Valencia town and the portions of Jordan have no power, affecting around 5,000 of its more or less 38,000 consumers.

The NGCP, in its generation restoration update as of Wednesday noon, showed 203.9 MW have been generated by Panay power plants and augmented by 11.1 MW from other sources in the Visayas.

“The grid needs about 135 MW to stabilize and is awaiting PCPC (135 MW) to synchronize back to the grid. Load restoration will be done conservatively by matching loads to restore generation (and) to prevent repeated voltage failure,” the NGCP said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.PNA