TransCo insists China capable of shutting down NGCP power transmission network

The National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) insisted on Wednesday that China is capable of remotely shutting down the Philippines’ power transmission grid, and that only an audit of its control centers could resolve the issue.

TransCo President and CEO Melvin Matibag belied the remarks of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) spokesperson and AVP Cynthia Alabanza that a shutdown can only be done manually.

“Well, that’s an outright lie. Unless you go back to the 1960s,” he said in a text message through his Chief of Staff Redentor Tuazon.

In response, Alabanza has maintained that China has no remote control of the country’s power lines, and that “it’s difficult to answer (TransCo) when the question keeps changing.”

Alabanza on Tuesday said that the Philippine grid could only be shut down by manually switching off breakers in each of the 200 substations across the country.

But Matibag noted a remote shutdown of the Philippine grid is possible, given the digital nature of its network.

In a separate interview Wednesday on ANC, Matibag belied Alabanza’s claim. “‘Yung sinasabi n’ya na papatayin isa-isa that’s Jurassic. Now, in the advent of the internet, there are optic lines sa SCADA.”

SCADA is the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, the system that controls the NGCP grid network.

“Simple lang why would you not allow the government to inspect? Maybe there is something we should not see,” Matibag added.

Last week, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the NGCP has prevented TransCo from conducting a security audit on the grid’s operating system.

“NGCP has a very extensive WAN/LAN Network all over the Philippines covering all their offices and substations,” Matibag noted.

“Moreover, there are other servers in various NGCP offices and control centers for special applications, like the Enterprise Data Management servers. Troubleshooting and remedial procedures for these are done online.”

Matibag noted that China, as a stakeholder in NGCP, could access the network remotely. Even the network facilities were replaced with facilities backed by Chinese companies sometime in 2010 and 2011.

“NGCP servers (can be) technically accessed by the proprietary network owner anywhere in China,” he said.

“How can they say they have exclusive access when all the systems set up in those facilities were all replaced by proprietary systems from NARI and Huawei?” he added.

NARI Group Corp. is one of the largest electric power equipment suppliers in China, while Huawei is a Chinese multinational company that provides electronics.

“The only way we can have peace of mind in all of these is for NGCP to allow a System Operation Audit. They can have their own team and the government with the NSA and DND will have their own team. But as we said they’ve tried every trick to avoid an audit,” Matibag emphasized.

“Do you feel safe in their claim that everything is fine? They just lied with the basic fact that all of the substations can only be accessed manually,” he said.

Lawmakers have been pushing for an audit and a legislative probe into the security implications of a partial Chinese ownership of the Philippine grid. The NGCP is 40% owned by the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC).

The remaining 60% is shared by Henry Sy Jr.’s Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. and Robert Coyiuto Jr.’s Calaca High Power Corp. with each holding a 30% stake in NGCP. —VDS, GMA News