Limlingan: NGCP’s Broken Promise
By Dennis Limlingan
The Advocate
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
SUNDAY NIGHT was supposed to be a big event or rather a big preparation for the young ones for school, as it was the eve of the first day of class. A big disappointment and disgust however marred the day and the night of June 5 as a big part of the province groped in the dark in a hot humid night.
A few days earlier, it was announced that the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, the distributor of electric power from power plants to power corporations, would be cutting off electric power supply from six in the morning to six in the evening. It was a 12-hour suffering that electric power consumers have to brave and sacrifice. The power supply interruption will redound anyway for the betterment of electric power services later on.
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According to technical sources, a new transformer was installed at the NGCP’s compound in Mexico town. It was supposed to perhaps upgrade the existing transformers to increase their load capacity or simply replace it with a new one as a maintenance measure.
It’s just normal that electric power distributors and other power facilities do some maintenance and repair activities such as the upgrading of power lines, of power poles, and replacement of electric transformers from time to time. In such cases, electric power interruptions are just normal too and people can bear with it. Normally, power interruptions are announced including the hours of its duration in order for people particularly electric power consumers to prepare for the outage.
The NGCP’ upgrading of an electric transformer meant the cutting of power supply for Pelco 1 and Pelco 3 and Presco during the supposed 6 am to 6 pm period last Sunday. The three electric power companies distribute electric power from the NGCP to consumers in various towns in eastern Pampanga including the city to be Mabalacat.
The restoration of electric power, it was announced, would be 6 p.m. and so people expected that.
But 6 p.m. came and no electric power was restored. With the heat of the night and looming darkness around, people started to become irritated and agitated. Where is the promise that electric power would be restored by dusk? Some even blamed the three electric power distributors for the prolonged power outage, not knowing that the culprit is the NGCP.
I tried to seek some information on why the promised 6 p.m. electric power restoration didn’t materialize. I sought for some answers while thinking of people getting restless due to the heat and humidity. Candles melted, everyone’s patience started to fade.
Came 7, 8, 9, and 10 p.m. and still electric power was not restored. People’s patience became hope and hope became desperation. In our neighborhood a woman who is about to give birth had to suffer the darkness around her and her baby.
The issue is not the power outage per se, but about the promise that the NGCP has given to electric power consumers who patiently waited; 6 p.m. is 6 p.m.
I’ve learned that the NGCP has yet to get a clearance from its main office in Diliman, Quezon City for it to switch on electric power. I wonder why they took them so long to get the said clearance when the interruption was in fact anticipated and scheduled. Does the NGCP have no contingency measures?
As a public utility firm, the NGCP has to take care of the public and has to serve its mandate with great care and concern for the public. As a public utility company, it is answerable and liable to the people. It should have applied contingencies assuming that the replacement of the power transformer took them so long to do it.
It was the eve of the first day of class for students and they were disappointed to make ready their school bags due to the widespread brownout. Some stayed late at night waiting for the electric power to be restored only for them to wake up early the next day to attend their classes.
With the heat of the night, I had to sleep in my car with the engine and aircon running. I was sweating all over, which brought me to this desperation. The high cost of gasoline pumped more perspiration from me.
Why not privatize the NGCP, a friend asked in a text message. That way, its services can significantly improve. He added that it’s like going back to the primitive days when darkness prevailed all over the place.
He went violent when he said that the National “Grid” (Corporation of the Philippines) should be called the National “Greed” instead.
As people lost their temper, businesses lost profits, students lost their sleep, I lost a very important appointment due to the massive electric power outage. If only we all could have known that electric power would be restored by almost midnight, we could have prepared ourselves if the NGCP cannot prepare itself for such a long delayed electric power restoration. The NGCP should do its job and it should do its job well.
Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/opinion/2011/06/07/limlingan-ngcp-s-broken-promise-159725
