Congress’ ‘power bloc’ seeks additional P9B budget for NEA

Electric cooperatives through their party-list groups are making a push in Congress to reinstate in the National Electrification Administration’s (NEA) proposed budget for 2021 an allocation of P9 billion that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) omitted.

The NEA submitted to Malacañang a proposed budget of P10.8 billion, but the DBM indicated only P1.8 billion in the proposed 2021 national expenditures program submitted to Congress.

According to the NEA, the so-called power bloc or group of sectoral parties that are identified with electric cooperatives has filed at the House of Representatives a resolution that urges the committee on appropriation “to restore” the P9 billion in the NEA budget.

These include the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association party list, Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives party list, Rural Electric Consumer and Beneficiaries of Development and Advancement and Ako Padayon Pilipino.

Dated Sept. 22, House Resolution No. 1245 argues that the NEA’s proposed budget was meant for the implementation of the government’s electrification projects.

NEA administrator Edgardo Masongsong said the additional budget was important to realize the goal of total electrification by 2022.

“NEA will appreciate a favorable action from Congress as initiated by the power bloc for the restoration of the original request for subsidy if only to fast track the government’s Total Electrification Program,” Masongsong said in a statement.

Included in the initiatives that the NEA spends on regularly are the Sitio Electrification Program (SEP), which is now on its second phase, Barangay Line Enhancement Program, and Strategized Sitio Electrification for Off-Grid Areas.

Of the P1.8 billion that the DBM is asking Congress on behalf of NEA, P1.6 billion is intended for the SEP while P200 million is for the Electric Cooperatives Emergency and Resiliency Fund.

Masongsong said the P1.6-billion planned subsidy for the SEP was enough to bring electricity for the first time to only 1,085 sitios or villages.

However, Masongsong said, about 12,000 sitios or 1.7 million households across the country remained without access to electricity.

Further, if included in the budget and eventually approved, the P9 billion will allow the NEA to energize an additional 3,915 sitios and enhance the grid connections of 74 barangays—including seven barangays under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict—and 13 submarine cabling projects. —RONNEL W. DOMINGO