Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Tuesday suggested closing some shopping malls and other establishments that consume a sizeable amount of electricity to ensure enough power during the May 9 elections.

In an interview with Radyo Pilipinas, Gatchalian emphasized the importance of having an uninterrupted power supply to guarantee smooth and credible national and local elections.

“Sa araw ng eleksyon ay mayroong kuryente dahil wala pong pasok. So, ang ibig sabihin, yung mga opisina katulad po nito [Senate], wala nga po kaming pasok, mababa po ang konsumo ng kuryente. Pero para masigurado na talagang mayroong kuryente, ang aking proposal, yung ilan sa mga shopping mall at ilan sa mga establisimyento. (On the election day, there will be enough supply of electricity because there will be no work. It means that offices like this [senate], like I said, will have no work, the electric consumption will be low. But to ensure that there will be enough power, my proposal is to close shopping malls and other establishments,” Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian, the chairperson of the Senate committee on energy, said it is important to properly count the votes.

“Makakapagshopping nga tayo pero magulo naman yung halalan natin dahil hindi naman mabibilang yung boto natin, mas malaking problema po yan. Yan naman po ay kung talagang worst-case scenario, kung talagang nakikita natin na may malaking banta ng pagba-brownout (We can go shopping but our election is chaotic because our votes cannot be counted, it is a bigger problem. It is just for the worst-case scenario if we saw that there will be a threat of power outage),” Gatchalian said.

He assured that based on his computation, if all power plants will be functioning well, there will be enough power supply on May 9 polls.

In January, the Department of Energy assured the public that there will be enough power supply during the May 9 elections. (PNA)