THE State Grid Corporation of China, technical partner of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP)is capable of shutting down the country's power transmission facilities remotely.
If the State Grid of China will go berserk, and would want to jeopardize the country’s economy, it will just have to switch off the entire transmission facilities – from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao.
This scenario is not far-fetched because State Grid of China has a 40 percent stake in the ownership of NGCP, and its technical staff are embedded at the very nerve of the transmission grid.
Helpless as it were, what the government has been doing through the years is apply the ‘wait and see’ security measures — monitor and record from a distance China's stake in the country's vital power infrastructure.
The entry of foreign partner into the country’s energy sector, in this case the power transmission facility was a product of shortsightedness on the part of lawmakers who penned the RA 9316 otherwise known as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 and RA 9511, granting franchise to NGCP, a consortium of Filipino and Chinese power players.
Earlier this week, NGCP has again justified its existence by setting aside fears that its business alliance and technical partner State Grid of China would shut down the country’s transmission highway.
The movement for brown-out free Mindanao was assured though that the State Grid of China is here in the country to do serious business, not monkey business. (ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com)
