PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday the country was experiencing an energy crisis because "the power systems are overloaded."

Interviewed after the inauguration of the Malitubog-Maridagao Irrigation Project Stage II in Pikit, Cotabato, Marcos said the power outages were caused by surges in demand triggered by extremely high-temperature levels.

"Our consumption really spiked because it's been very hot. We are really closely monitoring the situation," he said, reacting to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) raising red and yellow alerts in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

"We have plans, strategies to arrest the price of electricity. At least for now, in this crisis time. Because the demand is continuous, the price also increases, so we will find ways to control that," Marcos said.

"We're continuing to monitor the price, and we're continuing to encourage and to endorse all of the programs of NGCP so that they will increase the coverage of their transmission lines all over the country," he added.

The President said his administration was doing its best to ensure fewer power interruptions in the future.

"We continue to remind them (NGCP) to put up more transmission lines that we've long been waiting for. Also, the submarine cables so that excess electricity in other areas may be distributed to places that need it," he said.

"This should have been done a long time ago, but it seems to have been neglected by the others. We are now trying to catch up," he said.

A yellow alert means rotating brownouts or localized power interruptions are likely because the grid's reserve supply is running low.

A red alert means outages are inevitable when the supply is far too low to meet consumer demand.

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