IIt should be a principle of development that whenever conflicting plans of two government entities collide, the one with the greater national interest should take precedence.

N an alarming development, the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza) has forced a halt to the development of a critical grid connection in Cebu, prevailing upon a local court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the construction of a short section of a major transmission line crossing a strip of Tieza-controlled property by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).

While the matter is now in the hands of the Supreme Court as a result of an appeal by NGCP, that should not prevent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. from intervening to put Tieza in its place and order it to withdraw its protest. It would be better if Tieza itself recognized its shameful error in judgment and backed down on its own, but the circumstances of the case suggest that the Tieza leadership is too arrogant and too detached from reality to act responsibly without being ordered to do so.

The facilities in question are two transmission towers and the associated sections of transmission lines of the Cebu-Magdugo 230-kilovolt (kV) line, which is a major component of both the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) and the CebuNegros-Panay Stage 3 (CNP3) Backbone Project. According to the NGCP, without the Cebu-Magdugo line, the MVIP is only able to operate at about half its capacity, transmitting 270 megawatts

(MW) instead of the 450 MW it is designed for. Had Tieza not interfered, the needed connection would have been completed last month, according to NGCP.

This is particularly critical for the province of Cebu and the rapidly growing Metro Cebu area because several experts in the energy sector have recently sounded the alarm about an impending power supply crisis there.

Due to its geography, options for developing substantial new electricity supplies are limited;

Cebu does not have hydroelectric or geothermal resources and has limited suitable land space for solar, wind or even conventionally fueled generating plants of useful size. The MVIP and CNP3 will largely eliminate the threat of a power shortage by providing electricity from comparatively better-supplied Mindanao and other parts of the Visayas, but without it, according to the experts, Cebu could experience severe problems within the next couple of years.

What is most distressing about Tieza’s stand is that its plan for the property, which is not even under Tieza’s legal control any longer as a writ of possession for the affected portion was issued more than a year ago, is not an impactful tourism development that will bring new investment and jobs to the local community, but rather, a golf course. While some of us at The Manila Times are indeed golf enthusiasts, we also recognize that golf courses are, in general, environmentally unsound, particularly for the burden they place on water supplies. The choice to build a new one is an extraordinarily tone-deaf decision under any circumstances. Fighting to do so at the expense of energy security for the province, the region and to some extent, the nation at large — and in a province already under water stress and facing even more challenges as the El Niño dry spell begins to take hold — is not merely ill-considered, it is malicious.

It should be a principle of development that whenever conflicting plans of two government entities collide, the one with the greater national interest should take precedence. Tieza is a governmentowned and -controlled corporation (GOCC); NGCP is a private enterprise, but the grid itself, and anything NGCP adds to it, is owned by the National Transmission Corp. (Transco), another GOCC. Tieza does indeed contribute significantly to economic development and growth, but there is no way that a golf course can be justified as a more important project for the Philippines than infrastructure that improves energy supply. Tieza should be directed to modify its plans and withdraw its ridiculous legal action against the planned transmission facilities. Any other solution is an unacceptable disservice to the country.