Negros Oriental Third District Representative Janice Degamo has called for a congressional inquiry into the continued power outages in the Visayas, which she said are “no longer just an inconvenience.”
Degamo filed House Resolution 1114, directing the House Committee on Energy to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into the repeated Yellow and Red Alert statuses in the Visayas grid, the continued implementation of Manual Load Dropping, and the forced outages and derated capacities of numerous power plants.
She said the power outages “affect our homes, our schools, our hospitals, our businesses, our government services, and the daily lives of ordinary Filipino families.”
She added that the rotational power interruptions have been ongoing for more than a month now, affecting consumers across the Visayas.
“This situation demands clear answers. The public deserves to know why this keeps happening, what is being done to fix it, and who must be held accountable,” she said in a statement issued on June 11, 2026.
“We must ensure that our energy system is reliable, resilient, and ready to meet the needs of our people. Power is not a luxury. It is essential to public welfare, livelihood, education, healthcare, safety, and economic activity,” she added.
Degamo vowed to continue to push for answers and actions, saying the people of the Visayas deserve stable and reliable electricity.
“Through this inquiry, we seek energy security, grid reliability, consumer protection, and accountability from all concerned agencies, grid operators, generation companies, and distribution utilities,” she said.
As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, June 17, 2026, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issued a “Yellow Alert” for the Visayas Grid, effective 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., citing an available capacity of only 2,550 megawatt (MW) with the peak demand at 2,478 MW.
A Yellow Alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.
The NGCP said that 10 power plants have been on forced outage since June 2026, while eight have been on forced outage since May 2026.
One plant is also not operating since March, three plants since 2025, two plants since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021.
It said 12 plants are running on derated capacities, leaving a total of 984.8 MW unavailable to the Visayas grid.
The Yellow Alert declaration was due to the unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants TVI 1, TVI 2, PEDC 3, and KSPC 1, as well as the high demand forecast, according to the NGCP.
