THE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said an unscheduled power interruption completely blacked out the islands of Panay and Guimaras beginning early Wednesday.

The NGCP said in an advisory sent via Viber that the power interruption affected all distribution utilities in Panay and Guimaras starting 6:56 a.m. No further details were provided.

The outage in the Western Visayas comes on the heels of a three-day blackout in Occidental Mindoro starting June 25. The blackout was attributed to Occidental Mindoro Consolidated Power Corp.’s (OMCPC) decision to stop supplying electricity to Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative, Inc. (OMECO) after the expiration of their power supply agreement (PSA).

Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian called for a Senate investigation after the Mindoro outage.

Mr. Gatchalian said in a statement that he plans to “file a resolution to have the Senate direct the appropriate committee to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation on the matter, highlighting the need for a supply reliability and power quality and to protect consumers from losses attributed to power outages.”

Power supply resumed on Monday after Energy Regulatory Commission provisionally approved a new PSA for OMECO and OMCPC.

Mr. Gatchalian said that if issues are not addressed, provinces like Occidental Mindoro will be left behind.

“Kung hindi sapat ang mga umiiral na batas para tugunan ang problema sa suplay at kalidad ng kuryente sa Occidental Mindoro o kahit saan pa mang lugar o probinsiya, maaari tayong magbalangkas ng mga bagong batas o reporma sa mga kasalukuyang batas (If the prevailing laws are not sufficient to address problems of power supply and quality in Occidental Mindoro or in any other places, we may draft new laws or reform current laws),” Mr. Gatchalian added.

OMECO’s Occidental Mindoro franchise services 240,887 households. — Justine Irish D. Tabile

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