The question of power

Rumors of future power shortages reminiscent of those that bedeviled the economy and the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s are floating around again, enough to worry those who understand that unless the economy moves, the country will not. And, of course, unless there is power--steady, adequate, present, and, may we insist, cheap power--the economy will not move.

As before, our power infrastructure will need to be revisited, upgraded. Within this year alone, the cost of fossil fuels rose alarmingly. Biofuels, while plentiful in research, are untested in reality. We don't even have laws in place yet to encourage the development of biofuels.

Once again, a typically Filipino shortcoming is at the very heart of the matter: lack of foresight. When will Filipinos ever learn that to live one's life as one prefers is a right, but to run a government and a country is a responsibility?

_______________

Editorial, The Evening Paper
Issue of 3 April 1995

The National Power Corporation promises brownout-free summer months for all of us, with maximum reserves of 600 megawatts of electricity available in two weeks, enough to sustain the expected peak demand of 3,700 megawatts in the middle of April. However, Luzon-based power consumers should be ready for "short-duration outages of six to eight minutes a day" this month.

The statement was in response to an earlier statement by Raul Concepcion, chairman of the Multisectoral Task Force on Power Scheduling, raising the possibility of three- to four-hour daily brownouts this month. The NPC said Concepcion himself admitted being misquoted, as what he said was "a total of three to four hours for the whole month of April."

Of course, nobody would even have thought of brownouts again had certain parts of Metro Manila not been hit by them early last week. The NPC, washing its hands of responsibility for the recent outages, said these occurred within the Meralco franchise area.

Needed now, perhaps, is a definitive, joint, true statement from Malacañang, the NPC, Concepcion, and Meralco on the real power situation, both in the whole country and in the Meralco franchise areas. Only a statement such as this can reassure us now or prepare us for the worst.

In the absence of such a statement, the can of worms already opened by the black comedy of sporadic brownouts last week and a "misquoted" power-scheduling chairman will probably spread out even more frustrating and slimy rumors.

And that is only for the short term. For the long term, we tend to agree with Speaker Jose de Venecia who, whatever his usual shortcomings, speaks sense as far as the Philippine power situation is concerned. The Speaker wants a thorough review of the power situation--not just a review of power rates--to cover the crucial question of adequacy of power supply.

There is unquestioned logic in the proposal. For a country aspiring to NIChood, whether by year 2000 or after, strategic planning with regard to power requirements for the future should already be on today's drawing boards. As long as sizable areas of the country remain chained to the flickering, dim lights of candles and gas lamps, we cannot be considered a serious participant in the race for growth and development.

De Venecia pointed out that 15,000 barangays in the country, plus some island provinces, still do not have electricity. Now, the electrification of those areas should have been in yesterday's drawing boards. Their sorry situation keeps these areas bound to the dark ages. Their debilitating effects deprive the residents of the benefits of progress, and our national coffers, of the financial share in the benefits that progress can bring to these localities.

The complete electrification of the country is surely a national goal worth pursuing, even if you ask the most committed proponents of sustainable development. The only disagreements may be in the method of electrification to be pursued and the areas that may be ecologically endangered.

And while a comprehensive power-adequacy situation is under review, it may be time to resolve the future of the white elephant nobody wants to touch: the mothballed 600-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). In daily loan interests alone, we pay P7.8 million for the hideous monster. We cannot keep on paying for the folly of one man without trying to make it pay off for us.

Isn't it time to display decisive and unwavering political will about a monster that, even if it crumbles to a heap on the ground, still will not allow us to stop feeding it--and turn it around to serve us instead? We do not want a nuclear plant? Fine. We do not want a coal-fired plant? Fine.

So, can we not put the collective heads of our best and most respectable local scientists, energy experts, and environmentalists, in government and out of it, organize them into a group that will propose how best to convert the BNPP? Oil-fired, natural gas-fed, whatever. Get a national consensus, complete with studies on the most practical way to effect the conversion.

But making a decision to convert the mothballed plant and actually seeing to its conversion into a fully performing asset is a project that must be done now--not in the foreseeable future--but now. It is one achievement the Ramos administration can be proud of, as long as it is done without any taint of politics, in transparent and open consultation with the people, and successfully.

It will be a turnaround worth crowing about for the Philippines, and one that can help propel us into the NIChood for which we aspire.

-- NBT