Peace activists and cause-oriented groups are criticizing the reluctance of a Mt. Apo geothermal power plant developer to provide North Cotabato and its capital Kidapawan City a separate supply line from the facility.
The plant is now being constructed in Barangay Ilomavis, at the foot of Mount Apo in Kidapawan City, by the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) of the Lopez Group of Companies.
Under existing regulations of the Department of Energy, geothermal and hydro-electric power plants are to allocate no less than 25 percent of the electricity such facilities can generate to host cities and provinces.
The city council of Kidapawan already granted permission to the EDC to develop a third geothermal plant in Barangay Ilomavis through a resolution stipulating such supply scheme, but the EDC is now haggling for a revision of such provision in the council’s written imprimatur for the construction of the plant.
Ruby Padilla-Sison, a convener of Makabayan, a big alliance of militant groups in the province, said it is useless to allow the construction of another geothermal plant at Mount Apo if local residents cannot avail of the electricity it is to generate.
Sison said local power consumers are not asking for free supply and are willing to pay for the electricity from the new plant.
In a letter to Vice-Mayor Joseph Evangelista, presiding chairman of the Kidapawan City council, Richard Tantoco, a senior EDC official, said the plant would not be financially viable if they provide electricity to Kidapawan City and surrounding towns in North Cotabato via separate lines.
EDC said the allocation process can curtail its capability to supply power.
EDC also operates two older geothermal plants in Kidapawan City, built more than two decades ago by the state-owned Philippine National Oil Corporation and currently supplies about one-third of the Mindanao grid’s daily power requirements.
Kidapawan City council’s Resolution 12-251, which permitted EDC to forge ahead with the construction of the new power plant, has a provision enjoining the EDC and the Cotabato Electric Cooperative to agree on putting up separate power supply lines for the facility’s host area.
The EDC has appealed for a revision of the provisions in the resolution detailing such arrangement.
“No amendment must be made. People in Kidapawan City must benefit from the bounty Mount Apo can give,” Sison said.
