Former president Joseph Estrada on Wednesday claimed that the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo “concocted” the ongoing power crisis in Mindanao and expressed fears the crisis could "derail national and local elections.”
“The current power crisis in Mindanao could have been avoided,” Estrada said in a press conference.
“But the Arroyo administration not only did not take any concrete steps to avoid the calamity. It actually concocted the crisis as another means to line up the pockets of its favored cronies yet again and further savage the economy,” he added.
Estrada is running for president under the party Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino.
Particularly, Estrada slammed the proposal of Representative Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, the president’s eldest son, to allocate P5.5 billion to lease 160 modular generators to supply 160 megawatts of power to Mindanao.
“Why are they preparing only 160 megawatts [of power], when the deficit is 600 to 750 megawatts?” Estrada said.
During a Powerpoint presentation, Estrada said that the average base load requirement in Mindanao is 500 to 650 megawatts, while the daily peak load requirement ranges from 1,200 to 1,380 megawatts.
The deficit—600 to 750 megawatts—results in eight to 12-hour daily brownouts, Estrada added.
Estrada said that according to his camp’s computations, the amount needed to lease 160 modular generators cost only P2.1 billion and not P5.5 billion.
“The cost of 160 one-megawatt generators for six months is as follows: P624 million in rent, P1.382 billion in fuel consumption, and P80 million in mobilization/demobilization,” Estrada said.
“Compute it. That will add up to only P2.086 billion. There’s an excess of P3.4 billion. Where would they spend or who will get that huge amount” he added.
Estrada went on, “Why generate only 160 megawatts?”
He also added that if the power crisis in Mindanao was left unsolved, then it could cause serious problems come election time.
“This government is not interested in solving the problem, a problem of its own making. It precipitated the crisis precisely to give them the reason to defraud the people through yet another graft scheme,” Estrada said.
“The eight-hour power outages in Mindanao are bound to be there come election day: a very dire scenario that evokes all sorts of grim projections, including a failure of elections that could trigger tragic consequences,” he said.
