Privatize the power industry

Churchill Aguilar

THE four-hour rotating blackouts have somehow painted an alarming power crisis that makes other power source providers such as Aboitiz more like heroes. But if we look closely at the issue, what they give are bands on a gunshot wound. Not only that, they are harvesting power from their coal plants–very detrimental to our environment and surely not sustainable.

I remember proposing a more sustainable solution to our perennial blackouts a few years back. I would like to re-stress it again, hoping that this time those who call the shots would find merit to such suggestion.

Our power supply in Mindanao is largely dependent on hydroelectricity sourced from Lake Lanao in Marawi City and Pulangi River in Bukidnon. Today, it obviously could not provide enough megawatts resulting in power shortages all over Mindanao. There are only two ways to solve this: (1) explore sustainable alternative sources of energy and, (2) build additional power plants.

We basically get our electricity from the National Grid Corp., a  government owned corporation. Over the years our government has been subsidizing the hefty expenses from harvesting, transmitting and distributing power supply to all of us just so it would remain affordable. In short, maintenance and operation have become very expensive for the government and I’m sure it could not afford to invest more from our national budget to do either or both of the solutions I offered.

The best solution therefore is to privatize our hydro-electric power sources. While such idea might sound too risky, our experience with the privatization of oil during the Ramos administration would paint that such move is relatively safe. With our power system handed to the private hands, the huge investment to make the operation more efficient is now passed on to the said company. It will be a win-win situation both for the private firm and the government. The government will no longer have to subsidize the expenses of the operation and will not have to allocate huge budget for investment while it earns from the taxes it can collect.

All we have to do is create safety nets to ensure that prices will always be regulated just like how we did it with oil. The privatization of the hydro-electric sources will also minimize the sprouting of coal plants, which if unchecked would have an adverse effect in the lives of our poorer population who depended on our rivers and seas to be alive.

The blackouts have cost us so much already. Our small scale businesses have been mostly affected. We are losing millions of pesos everyday. It is taking a great toll in our economy. A nuclear plant would have solved this problem quickly but since we are prone from earthquakes it is too much of a risk. Privatization of our hydroelectric sources would be the best solution for now.