Manila, May 29 -- Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday urged the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to investigate recurring forced outages of power plants, saying repeated breakdowns continue to threaten supply and push electricity prices higher.

Gatchalian made the call after the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) again placed the Visayas grid under yellow alert on Thursday due to thin reserves.

The NGCP said 14 power plants have been on forced outage since the start of May.

"Itong mga yellow at red alert, dulot 'yan ng unplanned outages. Dapat imbestigahan ng ERC kung sumusunod pa rin ang mga plantang ito sa itinakdang standards ng gobyerno dahil paulit-ulit natin itong nakikita tuwing summer (These yellow and red alerts...