Energy chief now admits crisis real, action ‘VITAL’

Energy chief now admits crisis real, action ‘VITAL’

Posted 00:01am (Mla time) Jan 29, 2005
By Abigail Ho
Inquirer News Service

Editor’s Note: Published on page A1 of the January 29, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

ABOUT a month before last year’s elections, Energy Secretary Vince Perez declared the threat of a power crisis “imaginary.”

“There is no looming power crisis for the country, contrary to speculations,” he said then.

He was referring, in particular, to the prediction by Federico Lopez, president of the Meralco-affiliated First Generation Holdings, that a power crisis might happen as early as 2007.

Today, however, Perez seems to be reading from the same page as Lopez.

In an interview with the Inquirer and InqTV the weekend before he announced his resignation, he noted that supply in Luzon was sufficient until 2008, but that in Visayas and Mindanao it was “somewhat thin.”

The one-page summary paper his office had prepared was even clearer. “Power crisis,” its headline read. “The country is facing an imminent power supply shortage. Strategic power planning and coordinated action is VITAL in order to avert this potential economic disaster.” (Emphasis in the original.)

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