WITH the increasing demand, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas said that there is now an urgent need to increase energy support to the city to coincide with their growth.

Treñas said that based on their recent meeting, they determined that with the growing city, there is a need for additional reliable sources of power.

This is why the local chief executive called on power generation companies to look into investing in baseload plants in Panay Island.

He said that it is essential to meet the city’s fast-growing economy.

“There’s a need for additional baseload power for the city and Panay. Because Iloilo is growing by 9.6 percent for its GDP (gross domestic product), so that will mean economic activities and the need for additional baseload,” he said.

Treñas said that the city power supply demand goes to some 6 to 7 percent in an annual increase.

He said that he does not want a repeat of what happened in January when Western Visayas was hit by a region-wide blackout after two major plants on the island tripped. 

Iloilo City suffered P500 million in losses a day during the outages.

“While investors are scared, they are still coming in. So, assuming that they will no longer be scared, I think there will be more,” he said.

Iloilo City has not increased its property tax for the past 18 years.

“I think once we get some investments in the baseload power plants, the investments coming into Iloilo will further accelerate,” he added.