He told senators they are  creating a power task force that would find ways to increase power supply, and at the same time work out the construction of power plants in the two regions.

In Mindanao alone, he said, they are  constructing  a 200-megawatt power plant in Misamis Oriental that would be enough to offset electricity shortage when the crisis starts battering the region in 2005. “We worked for its construction last year, and we expect to complete it in Dec. 2005,” he said.

In the Visayas, the energy chief said they are working for the transfer of a plant from Batangas to Panay Island, where the service contract has already expired, so that it could be activated to produce additional power for the region.

He said they have also sent out power barges to Iloilo, Capiz and Batanayan in Cebu to shore up whatever the region is producing and ease the impact of the crisis.

Perez said they are also setting up a geothermal power plant in Negros.

He said that since does not end in the two regions, they hope to finally solve the power shortage through taxation, calling on Congress to allow the government to impose additional tax measures for an increased revenue that would allow it to absorb some R500 billion of the stranded assets of the National Power Corp.

Senate Energy Committee chairperson Miriam Defensor Santiago told the hearing that the only reason she surmised why Napocor is debt-ridden, is the fact that the government has been contractually obligated to pay certain Independent Power Producers even without the latter having to deliver power to Napocor.

“The real reason for the high cost of power is the take-or-pay provision of numerous IPP contracts, sinobrahan ang pagpirma ng napakaraming kontrata,” she said.

The senator noted that in the early 1990s, during the administration of then President Fidel Ramos, the government continued signing contracts with IPPs even when the country no longer needed them.

She said  her committee would take time to review questionable IPP contracts in its succeeding hearings. The first five she lined up for review are Napocor’s contracts with IPPs that put up the following: Binga hydropower electric plant, Sual coal thermal power plant, Cavite Epza diesel power plant, Casecnan hydropower plant, and San Roque Multi-purpose project  

Sen. Serge Osmeña disclosed that some IPPs sell power already purchased by  Napocor, through a contract with take or pay provision, to other distribution utilities outside the state-owned power corporation.

He cited the case of Mirant Corp., the biggest IPP in the country, which, he said, sells power already purchased by Napocor under contract, to independent distribution utilities.

Osmeña said the fact that  Napocor condones the selling makes energy officials  liable for graft.