CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—The continued widespread rotating brownouts in major cities in Mindanao are already taking a toll on investment opportunities in the island, said the president of the an association of industries here yesterday.
This, as this business hub of Northern Mindanao continues to suffer 5-hour brownouts daily.
Jerome Soldevilla, president of the Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Industries (COCI), disclosed that Ingasco, Inc., one of the country’s leading gas manufacturing and distributor, has put on hold its plant expansion program at the PHIVIDEC area “after failing to get an assurance of a power supply contract” from the National Power Corporation (NPC) and local power utilities.
Ingasco Inc. is a joint venture company between Japanese firm Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation (TNSC) and Caloocan Gas Corporation. It earlier indicated plans of putting up an air separation plant in Misamis Oriental next year to boost its existing productions in Batangas.
“Hundreds of permanent jobs are expected to be generated with this new project.
Unfortunately, the project has been put on hold pending assurances of a reliable power supply from the Mindanao grid,” Soldevilla said.
Ingasco needs about 3 megawatt for its operations.
It is 2007 financial disclosure, Ingasco reported sales of more than P1 billion, making it one of the Philippines’ leading companies engaged in the production, marketing and distribution of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, acetylene, carbon dioxide and other allied gasses.
Soldevilla also said that new business entrants have complained about the lack of coordination between the NPC and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation in handling the evaluation for new power supply contracts.
Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Director-General Lilia Delima admitted that no new investments came to Mindanao during the first quarter of this year.
“This is really sad for Mindanao. Investors’ confidence has gone down. Unless permanent and long-lasting solutions are put in place to address this power issue, Mindanao’s competitiveness as an investment destination will continue to erode,” Soldevilla said.
Soldevilla urged presidential candidates to draw up a master plan that addresses the power shortage in Mindanao this early so that whoever will win on May 10 will just have to implement the plan and exercise political will to see it through for the good of the island and the whole country.
“We look forward that the next administration will exercise political will in securing a stable and reasonably priced power supply in Mindanao, after the current administration miserably failed to look into this problem a long time ago,” he said. (Bong D. Fabe)
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