SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian has urged the Senate to review the government’s electrification program, with the aim of assessing existing strategies in closing the gap in households across the country that still do not have power.
“We want to check on the status of electrification of the country to assess and possibly revise the national electrification strategy,” said Gatchalian.
He filed Senate Resolution No. 695, claiming the assessment would be helpful in “achieving total electrification for the welfare of the Filipino people and the development of the nation.”
At present, he said the government was employing three methods in pursuing the total electrification agenda.
He said the first was through grid extension by electric cooperatives, carried out by the National Electrification Administration.
“The second is by missionary electrification in off-grid areas, which is being implemented by the National Power Corp. The last method is through the entry of qualified third parties in remote and unviable areas.”
The methods, Senator Ralph Recto said, are being subsidized either through government appropriations or pass-on charges to consumers through the universal charge for missionary electrification.
The senator explained that from 2016 to 2018, the government allocated P5.45 billion for sitio electrification and P3.97 billion for the supply of electricity in missionary areas.
In addition, around P73 billion has been remitted from the universal charge for missionary electrification collection, as of December 2017, he said.
Despite all efforts, however, Gatchalian stressed that as of December 2017, a 2,399,108 of unserved households were not connected to the power grid, equivalent to 16 percent of households in the entire country.
The majority of this number are found in Mindanao (1,345,116 households), while Luzon and the Visayas share the remaining half (529,952 and 524,040 households, respectively).
“It is necessary to review the national electrification project of the government by identifying which communities are economically viable for grid extension, how much government appropriations are necessary to complete the extension, and in how long the construction can be accomplished,” he said.
“It is likewise important to know,” he added, “which communities are best for off-grid electrification, what technologies are suitable for them, and how fast the entry of qualifies third parties in the remote and unviable areas can be facilitated.”