By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
The two days of “brownouts” last week forced people to curse BENECO even if they were not easily given to that kind of behavior. Those who controlled themselves on the first night who were inclined to give the electricity cooperative the benefit of the doubt, eventually lost control on the second night. Cuss words were then being spouted freely by them.
For one, it is very difficult to move without power. For another, everybody is going crazy when there is no internet service. Then there were the food items in refrigerators in homes that got spoiled. What a waste. In comparison these might be small compared to the losses of commercial establishments. What would stores do with melted ice creams and other items that need to be in coolers not to get sour?
But then again BENECO will have a lot of excuses and as long as they are protected by the powers-that-be, the people there will remain. So our sights must be trained on their protectors.
With elections just around the corner, it will be our time to voice out our disgust through our votes. Hopefully, such would not have waned by then, knowing our vaunted short memories. Give our people time and in a short wile they would have forgotten the sufferings they endured. Not again, please.
We the people should vent our anger against those in power whenever utility services are poor or despicable. Rightly so, because they are usually instrumental in the appointment of those running the outfits responsible for the booboo.
But to be objective about it, we will keep on getting such poor services. Main culprit is the lack of vision and leadership of our leaders. A strong leadership would have whipped local officials to be efficient in the delivery of utility services such as water and electricity.
A past article in this paper about a reliable electricity service comes to mind. It was written by our columnist Danilo Padua, PhD. He went to graduate school in Germany and in his stay there for a number of years, he did not experience any “brownout”. Not even for a minute.
He later found out the country or the city or state where he studies had three back-up systems to take over the system being used if it got into trouble. Even if two systems failed which is very unlikely, there would still be one spare system to provide the electricity while the failed ones were being fixed.
In the Philippines that is a pie in the sky. I still have to hear of a city here with even just one back-up system.
And our electric lines are still up there dangling from post to post, hence, they are easily cut-off by strong winds during typhoon seasons. And the posts are easily broken due to poor quality.
I have yet to hear of a Philippine locality where electric lines are underground, safe from surface vulnerabilities, except perhaps in a few upscale subdivisions.
In Baguio City, the best time to start installing such underground system would have been when the main section of Magsaysay Avenue was dug out. It was to widen the drainage system from Malcolm Square to the edge of Center Mall where the road going up to Dangwa Bus Station is found. That was decades ago and up to now nothing is happening towards that end. From the looks of things, there will not be any in the foreseeable future. Only in the Philippines.
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