Brownouts not stopping polls: Comelec

NOT even the specter of a total blackout will stop the automated elections in Northern Mindanao, the head of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the region said Tuesday.

This came as the Comelec plans to meet power companies in the Mindanao region this weekend to discuss possible plans for the coming May 10 elections.

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Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the move aims to lay out solutions to the power crisis happening in the Mindanao grid, which is suffering from five to 12 hours brownouts daily.

Larrazabal said lack of power is “not reason enough to hold manual elections” in Mindanao.

Comelec-Northern Mindanao Director Renato Magbutay agreed, saying contingency measures will ensure that the voting would remain unhampered by power interruptions, or even a complete power cut off.

“We anticipate that there will be total brownouts in some areas, but we have standby power that guaranteed to last for 16 hours,” Magbutay said.

He pointed out that precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be deployed during the election day have external batteries, while canvassing centers will be equipped with generators.

With power generation reaching below critical levels, local power utility Cagayan Electric Power and Light Company (Cepalco) has warned the public of longer rotating brownouts and the possibility of total power failure.

Magbutay said power failure “on election day will not result in a failure of elections because the manner of voting, in a way, is still manual.”

And even if power shortage could affect the automated transmission of election results, Magbutay said this does not pose a problem at all because the board of canvassers in cities, towns and provinces are on standby to record the votes manually.

Meanwhile, production in hydroelectric plants in Iligan and Bukidnon further deteriorated Tuesday as the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines announced higher curtailment levels.

This would in turn translate to longer brownouts, said Ed Llossa, vice president of Minergy, a local independent power producer.

But the public, he said, can help ease the impact of power interruptions by conserving energy.

Cepalco has announced a five-hour daily rotating brownouts in Cagayan de Oro beginning Thursday until March 16.

Larrazabal said that based on Comelec's initial discussions with power companies, the problems on brownouts could be resolved.

But the commissioner refused to reveal the actions they might implement in averting power supply problem during the election day itself.

Larrazabal said the Comelec en banc directed its regional directors nationwide to submit the precinct maps to the power companies "so that they know which towns need power on election day."

The Department of Energy, through Napocor, also submitted a contingency plan that would prevent power supply interruptions during the voting, counting, and canvassing for the May 10 elections.

At present, Agus 5 is now running at 15 MW, Agus 6 at 30 MW, Agus 7 at 10 MW, and Pulangi at 30 MW. (With Nicole J. Managbanag/Sunnex)