Church and civic groups launched a watchdog campaign on April 11 calling on the government and energy sector to ensure an uninterrupted power supply during the May 2025 midterm elections.
They warned that blackouts could compromise the integrity of the electoral process.
The campaign, Kontra Brownout, Iwas Daya!, came amid projections of yellow and red power alerts starting in late April, with concerns that recurring summer outages may disrupt voting operations and open the door to election fraud.
“At the upcoming election, we have an opportunity to exercise our right of electing public servants tasked to confront the many challenges faced by Filipinos today. We cannot allow unreliable electricity to jeopardize this,” said Jing Henderson, Head of the National Integral Ecology Program at Caritas Philippines.
“At the same time, we can and should use our vote to shape an energy sector that helps ensure clean elections in the future — through the shift to clean and reliable energy from renewables. Both incumbent public servants and all running in candidacies today must take a stand for this,” she added.
The campaign coalition includes the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development (CEED), Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC), and the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE), among others.
“Hundreds of power outages are recorded across the country annually, many of them during the summer season,” said CEED’s Krishna Ariola.
She added that brownouts and power interruptions have long been associated with risks of election fraud, as they can disrupt the transmission of results, expose vote counts to potential tampering, and place teachers and other frontline poll workers in vulnerable situations.
“Power supply issues can easily make or break our elections, especially with the technology-dependent systems we have today,” she said.
Teachers, who serve as frontliners in poll operations, also raised concerns.
“We’ve seen it before — teachers scrambling to protect ballots or machines, votes, and themselves. In relation to electricity supply, this is a preventable crisis,” said Benjo Basas of TDC.
“We do our duty every election. This time, we ask the government to do theirs. No teacher should be left in the dark, literally and figuratively, while performing this crucial role in our democracy,” he added.
In February, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) warned that brownout-free summer months could not be guaranteed due to the rising frequency of unplanned power plant shutdowns.
A yellow alert was already recorded in the Luzon grid on March 5, raising further alarm.
“Power must be available and stable not only during voting day, but throughout the entire election process. We cannot have an election at risk of failures because of failure to secure dependable power,” said Atty. Ona Caritos, Executive Director of LENTE.
