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Senator Recto urges DOE to ensure no brownouts during Pacquiao-Mayweather fight


Amid the looming brownouts due to a power shortage, a senator on Wednesday urged energy officials to ensure there are no outages on May 2 in the US (May 3, PHL time), the day Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao and unbeaten American champion Floyd Mayweather will slug it out in the ring.
 
"If the people won't be able to cheer Manny because power is out, they will jeer the government,” Senator Ralph Recto said in a statement, adding that the government will be the “punching bags” of people who would be deprived of watching on TV the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.
 
He said the government should use the special powers it is asking from and which Congress is poised to grant the President to prevent blackouts this summer when demand for electricity is at its peak, “especially on May 2.”
 
“You have the powers, you will have hundreds of millions of pesos, you have the time, so please see to it that there will be no brownout not only on May 2 but throughout summer,” he said.
 
Malacañang has invoked provisions of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) in asking Congress for emergency powers to contract additional capacity and avert an impending power crunch.
 
Section 71 of law states that “upon the determination by the President of the Philippines of an imminent shortage of the supply of electricity, Congress may authorize, through a joint resolution, the establishment of additional generating capacity under such terms and conditions as it may approve.”
 
The Senate is currently deliberating on a resolution to give President Benigno Aquino III special powers in addressing a power supply shortage.
 
“The effectiveness of the emergency powers will be tested on May 2,” Recto said.  
 
“I think one promissory note we should be asking from the Department of Energy is that there will be adequate supply of electricity on the day of the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout,” he added. – VS, GMA News
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