Deputy House Speaker and Bacolod Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez has filed a resolution directing the House Committee on Visayas Development to investigate the worsening power crisis in the Visayas grid.
In the resolution released Monday, Sept. 7, Benitez expressed alarm over the worsening situation.
“The frequent rotational brownouts in the Visayas region have increased from around one hour to five to nine hours,” Benitez said.
“This inflicts direct economic losses on businesses, disrupts schools, endangers medical patients, and erodes investor confidence in the region”, he said.
The inquiry aims to hold stakeholders accountable and ensure a stable, reliable power supply for the region.
Benitez noted that the chronic outages violate rights guaranteed under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (EPIRA) and the Magna Carta for Residential Electricity Consumers.
As of Sept. 3, 2026, the Visayas grid had recorded 93 yellow alerts and 30 red alerts since the start of the year. On Sept. 4, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issued another red and yellow alert due to severe supply shortages, he said.
An NGCP report highlighted Cebu as the grid’s weak link, showing a simulated evening peak shortfall of 422 megawatts (MW)—with peak demand hitting 1,077 MW against a dependable capacity of just 655 MW. This forced load-shedding and required drawing power from Panay, Negros, Leyte-Samar, and Bohol, Benitez said.
The NGCP report revealed that 12 power plants in the region suffered forced outages in September 2026 alone. Additionally, 17 other units have remained offline for extended periods—including three down since 2025, two since 2024, two since 2023, and one offline since 2021. With 16 other plants running on derated capacities, a total of 972.6 MW has been rendered unavailable to the grid.
Contributing factors include the unavailability of major coal plants, such as Toledo Power Inc. Unit 1 (TVI 1) and Panay Energy Development Corporation Unit 3 (PEDC 3); tripping events along the Leyte-A (Maha) transmission lines and Cebu Energy Development Corporation Unit 1 (CEDC 1); outages at Panay Diesel Power Plant Units 3-E and 3-H (PDPP3-E, PDPP3-H), and Central Negros Power Reliability, Inc. Unit 2 (CENPRI U2); along with limited power imports from Mindanao, Bemitez said.
Benitez questioned whether generation companies and grid operators are complying with maintenance standards, rehabilitation obligations, and license requirements given that outages have persisted for years.
He urged the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to strictly enforce performance standards, review Power Supply Agreements (PSAs), and promote transparency in electricity pricing and fuel procurement.
The proposed inquiry will explore energy mix models to lower overall electricity costs, he said.
Benitez asked the committee to invite officials from the NGCP, Department of Energy, ERC, power generation companies, electric cooperatives, distribution utilities, and affected stakeholders to explain their immediate mitigation measures.*
[sibwp_form id=1]