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On average, about 20 tropical cyclones enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility each year, with eight to nine of them making landfall. One of them was Severe Tropical Storm (STS) Opong (international name Bualoi), which made landfall in Palanas, Masbate, at 4 a.m. on September 26, 2025, placing the province under a state of calamity.
According to the Office of Civil Defense in Bicol (OCD-5), losses to agriculture and infrastructure have reached ₱83 million to date.
Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Sharon Garin and her team visited the province to inspect its damaged power assets. The DOE noted that transmission lines, distribution facilities, and generation units had suffered significant impacts, though the total cost has yet to be determined.
(Also read: Visayas Faces Higher Costs Amid Power Strain)
Grappling with prolonged blackouts
Many towns in Masbate remain without power and face limited communication. Still, restoration is underway as linemen from Cebu, Albay, Catanduanes, and Iloilo join nationwide cooperative teams to assist the Masbate Electric Cooperative (Maselco) in repairs.
Garin stressed that restoration efforts in Masbate are being carried out with urgency but with safety as the foremost priority. She offered reassurance to residents that the agency “will do everything they can to restore electricity as quickly and safely as possible.”
On September 29, the Philippine Information Agency reported that 25 electric cooperatives (ECs) in 22 provinces across eight regions were still under DOE monitoring after Typhoon Nando, STS Opong, and the southwest monsoon.
Eighteen of these ECs continue to suffer partial outages, while only five have already restored normal service. Maselco and Tablas Island Electric Cooperative (TIELCO), however, remained completely without power.
These challenges reflect a recurring problem: ECs across the country have historically struggled to cope with severe weather events.
EC weaknesses under storms
In the Philippines, ECs remain highly vulnerable to weather disturbances, as the following cases illustrate:
- Southern Leyte Electric Cooperative (Soleco)
Weather disturbance: Super Typhoon (ST) Odette in December 2021
Government aid: The National Electrification Administration (NEA) supervised the restoration of EC sites affected by the ST, with Soleco listed among its priority inspections
Recovery Time: 226 days after the typhoon, all 503 villages were re-energized; full restoration was completed by July 30, 2022
- First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative (Ficelco)
Weather disturbance: ST Pepito in November 2024.
Government aid: Ficelco sought about ₱90.6 million from NEA to fund repairs of distribution facilities. NEA and the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca) sent 206 line workers from 25 ECs to help rebuild the damaged power network.
Recovery Time: NEA targeted full restoration before Christmas, just over a month after the outage, leaving 60,657 consumers without power for weeks.
- Various ECs across Calabarzon, Bicol, & Eastern Visayas
Weather disturbance: STS Kristine in October 2024
Government aid: Over 970,000 consumer connections across 86 ECs were affected. Task Force Kapatid (TFK) was activated to deploy linemen and technical staff from various ECs to speed up restoration in the hardest-hit cooperatives.
How long until full restoration: Some areas were “almost fully energized” a few weeks after initial disruptions, but in some areas full restoration took longer — exact durations varied depending on severity and accessibility.
Weak infrastructure, slow recovery
Manila Standard columnist Ray Eñano observed that without sufficient capital, ECs struggle to cope with disaster impacts. “Unlike large distribution utilities (DUs), most ECs in the country have inferior infrastructure and do not have the technical expertise to meet the demands of consumers,” he stated.
He pointed out that despite financial aid and technical support from NEA, ECs are ill-prepared for calamities. “The poor response from a public service provider like ECs after a disaster is inexcusable—they should be at the forefront of recovery efforts,” he wrote. “Providing reliable and sustained power supply is the mandate of the ECs. This includes restoring electricity immediately to ease the sufferings of typhoon victims.”
But funding is not the only issue—it’s how those funds are being used. A review by the Iloilo-based Institute of Contemporary Economics (ICE) revealed that ECs in Panay and Guimaras had spent barely a quarter of their ₱10.52-billion capital allocation from 2022 to September 2024. ICE cautioned that unless investments are ramped up and better directed, these aging systems could struggle to keep pace with the accelerating shift toward renewable energy.
Additionally, the government has established mechanisms to support electric cooperatives (ECs) during disasters, notably through the Electric Cooperatives Emergency and Resiliency Fund (ECERF) administered by NEA.
After the devastation of STS Kristine, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian urged NEA to ensure all ECS comply with the ECERF law to reduce the impact of storms on power supply.
“The goal of ECERF is not just to provide funds that ECs can tap for the restoration and rehabilitation of ECs’ damaged infrastructures following a fortuitous event such as typhoons but to ensure that the distribution utilities are resilient to withstand calamities,” Gatchalian stated.
He also reminded ECS to annually submit vulnerability and risk assessments, emergency response plans, mitigation plans, and resiliency compliance reports to the NEA. They are also required to report on the implementation of mitigation projects identified in these assessments.
He stressed that, given the Philippines’ high exposure to natural disasters, ECs must strengthen their resilience to prevent or minimize power interruptions during and after calamities.
(Also read: NGCP’s Transmission Fee Hikes: Are They Justified?)
ECs: Funded by taxpayers
In 2024, the NEA issued roughly ₱1.8 billion in loans to 36 ECs, up from ₱1 billion the previous year. Nearly ₱1.2 billion of this funding was allocated to capital projects across more than 20 provinces, targeting upgrades to regional power infrastructure.
In 2025, the government released ₱3.6 billion for the Sitio Electrification Program and line rehabilitation, with Congress earmarking over ₱5 billion in the current budget. These funds, provided as grants rather than loans, are not repaid but must be properly liquidated.
However, the Commission on Audit (COA) reports noted ₱992 million in unliquidated balances as of 2023, highlighting persistent concerns over accountability in a subsidy program that continues to cost taxpayers billions.
“One of the more wasteful agencies in the government, one that needs an endless subsidy from Philippine taxpayers, is the National Electrification Administration (NEA),” wrote BusinessWorld columnist Bienvenido Oplas.
Oplas pointed out that even after receiving ₱12.9 billion in 2020 and continued annual subsidies, many ECs still struggle with heavy losses and subpar service compared to private DUs. He also criticized NEA’s rules allowing ECs up to 12% system losses, double the 6% limit for private DUs, arguing it drives up electricity costs for rural consumers.
Meanwhile, Manila Tribune columnist Komfie Manalo observed that ECs have long relied on government handouts instead of investing in their distribution systems, leaving many areas still prone to frequent outages.
He wrote, “According to analysts, the subsidies must be halted to cut the undue burden on taxpayers, who are not even customers of these electric cooperatives but unfortunately still carry the responsibility to aid in the survival of the ECs.”
Sources:
https://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/climate/tropical-cyclone-information
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1260166
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2117605/doe-p-400m-needed-to-restore-masbate-power-assets
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1180479
https://business.inquirer.net/494017/full-power-restoration-in-catanduanes-seen-before-christmas
https://www.nea.gov.ph/ao39/913-2024-10-31-09-44-57
https://www.bworldonline.com/the-nation/2024/10/23/630308/kristine-hits-almost-1m-power-lines/
https://www.nea.gov.ph/ao39/913-2024-10-31-09-44-57
https://mb.com.ph/2024/10/31/nea-urged-to-ensure-resiliency-
https://tribune.net.ph/2023/12/23/electricity-subsidies-to-electric-coops-a-never-ending-burden