MANILA (2nd Update) -- President Benigno Aquino III assured Thursday that he has no intention to postpone Monday's elections following the power blackout that hit Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon on Wednesday.
Aquino, in an ambush interview at Quirino Elementary School Multi-Purpose Building in Quezon City, said that investigation has been ongoing on the real cause of the power outage, which raised speculations of a no election scenario on May 13.
"On the question that this was like a dry-run for no election? I can guarantee you, I can put my hand on whatever kind of Bible that I have no interest in postponing this election," he said, citing his still hoarse voice because he was busy campaigning for the Team PNoy senatorial bets.
"We are really enthusiastic to end this campaign and election period and to concentrate in fixing the problems of our country," the President said.
While an investigation has been ongoing on the recent power blackout, Aquino said that Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla assured him that there will be enough power supply on election day.
Power blackout was allegedly due to the sudden outage of the five power plants in the Luzon grid, according to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.
United Nationalist Alliance spokesman Toby Tiango expressed hope that the massive brownout last Wednesday was not a dry run for Monday's polls.
But Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes said the power blackout should serve as a warning to the Department of Energy of the possible scenario on May 13.
"At least it served as a warning to the Department of Energy for them to solve already what they need to solve so that it won’t happen on election day," he said. "What's worse is that we don't have any contingency plans prepared and suddenly something like that will happen on election day."
The Comelec has deployed 956 generator sets across the country to serve as backup in cases of brownouts. Of the total, 221 units were deployed to the Davao Region in Mindanao, as areas there experience daily rotational brownouts of up to eight hours.
The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) has 216 generator sets while the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has 116 units.
Comelec also provided a fuel budget of P3,400 for each generator set. (SDR/Kathrina Alvarez/Sunnex)