There won’t be a repeat of power outages that hit Metro Manila and parts of Luzon on Wednesday come election day, both the government and the Manila Electric Co. promised Wednesday night.
“Rest assured this won’t happen on election day,” Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said in a Philippine Star report. Cynics and conspiracy theorists went online on Wednesday–those who could, anyway–to question the timing of the widespread power outage. Petilla said, however, that there is no reason to believe the blackout was caused by sabotage. which, conspiracy theorists will say is exactly what the government would say.
“It’s all systems go. We are ready for any eventuality come election day,” Meralco’s Primo Alonzo also said in the report. He said Meralco will have generators on standby in case of power interruptions.
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said the blackouts were caused by a lack of power supply after six power plants shut down. Parts of Metro Manila experienced rotating power outages to keep things democratic.
