Drilon, Angara, Binay go offline during Senate session due to rotational brownouts

At least three senators on Tuesday faced difficulties in connecting to the Senate hybrid session due to the rotational brownout being implemented in Luzon.

In the early part of Senate’s session on Tuesday, Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri informed the chamber that some of his colleagues cannot go online due to the power outage.

“I just got a call from our Minority Floor Leader. Apparently there are several areas in Metro Manila that are experiencing brownout and some of our colleagues have gone offline because of this,” Zubiri said.

“So I beg the indulgence our colleagues, those who are offline and online but we’ll continue with our agenda, those who are lined up to interpellate that are not able to log in, we can just move their interpellation for a later hour or the next day,” he added.

The lawmakers who were affected by the said brownouts were Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, Senators Sonny Angara, and Nancy Binay.

Earlier in the day, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said that electricity consumers in Luzon may expect rotational brownouts to be implemented for the entire first week of June.

The rotational brownouts were due to the thin power supply resulting from planned and unplanned outages of several power plants

NGCP earlier placed the Luzon Grid under Yellow Alert from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., and from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m.; and Red Alert from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., indicating that there is zero ancillary services or a generation deficiency exists.—AOL, GMA News