MikeLigalig.com

As many fear that the power crisis will have an effect on the May polls, deputy presidential spokesperson Ricardo Saludo assured on Monday that there will be no failure of election.

Although he admitted that tripping off of power was experienced the past weeks, he explained that the reason was not production but distribution.

Saludo said to solve the problem, major players are being brought in to the power sector, naming among them STEAD, a European power company, which is putting up a 261-megawatt coal plant.

He said the government is barred from putting up power plants and the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) Law prohibits the state-owned power company, the National Power Corporation, from getting into power production.

"The law prohibits the government to build more power plants and we work hard to bring in more investors in the power sector," Saludo said.

But citing the analysis of election lawyer, Atty. Romulo Macalintal, he said there will be no failure of the first ever automated elections in the country.

"In worst case scenario with about 70 percent counted through automation and 30 percent manually, you will not have failure of election," he said.

Saludo said even in case of a partial automation, the situation would still be far better compared before when 100 percent of the counting was done manually. (PNA)
LAP/Digna D. Banzon/lvp