ILOILO City – The Iloilo provincial government is not alone in pursuing legal action against the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP). The Iloilo City Government has also announced its intention to join the lawsuit.
NGCP is a privately-owned corporation tasked by the national government with operating, maintaining, and developing the country’s state-owned power grid, which is an interconnected system transmitting gigawatts of power at thousands of volts from generation to distribution.
“We will join the province of Iloilo when they file the class suit against NGCP,” Mayor Jerry Treñas said.
He made this announcement several days after the Senate and House of Representatives’ respective energy committees held hearings on the power blackout in Panay Island on Jan. 2 to 5.
Treñas expressed his frustration, as this was the second occurrence of a prolonged blackout in the city, with the previous one happening in April 2023.
He noted that no one was held accountable for the April 2023 blackout, while the January 2024 blackout resulted in nearly P2-billion economic loss for the city.
“”Who is going to pay for this? We are looking for accountabilities; we are not going to sit down this time and just listen to all these inquiries… This time we will not allow those people who are responsible to get away with this,” Mayor Treñas asserted.
Meanwhile, Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. said, “We are positioning to take legal recourse to vindicate the rights of our people.”
“We in Iloilo and the rest of Region 6 are positioning to take legal recourse to vindicate the rights of our people and ensure they can be compensated for the damage done. More importantly, we aim to exert the strongest pressure to prevent such blackouts from happening again,” Defensor added./PN
