Blackouts resume, spoil Sona viewing

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

BLACKOUTS hit the city and parts of Misamis Oriental again yesterday, preventing thousands from watching and listening to President Aquino’s sixth and final State-of-the-Nation Address (Sona).

Rotating four-hour power outages were scheduled again by the Cagayan Electric Power and Light Co. (Cepalco) after power load levels went beyond its allocation from the Mindanao grid.

Incidentally, Malacanang earlier called on citizens to watch and listen to Aquino’s last Sona because of its “national significance.”

Cepalco senior manager for customer and community relations Marilyn Chavez said the afternoon blackout affected some seven thousand residential and commercial establishments. At five people per establishment, that’s 35 thousand people.

In Gusa alone, there was no cable TV signal as a result of the blackout that affected the provider. “I wanted to watch but how can I? There’s no power, and even with a generator, there is no cable TV signal,” complained businessman James Giam.

Bebsally Abubacar, wife of Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) regional director Sabdullah Abubacar, blamed her failure to watch the Sona on the blackout.

“They should have scheduled the power interruption in the morning, not in the afternoon when the President delivered a very important speech,” Abubacar said.

President Aquino started addressing the nation at around 4 pm. In Gusa, the power supply, interrupted at around 1 pm, was restored ahead of Cepalco’s 5 pm schedule.

The city and parts of Misamis Oriental under the Cepalco franchise suffered four-hour rotating blackouts last week but more power allocation from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) due to improved water inflow at the Pulangi hydroelectric power plant made power consumers here heave a sigh of relief from Thursday till weekend. Elizabeth Ladaga, an NGCP spokesperson, said NGCP did not plan a power outage in the Cepalco franchise area yesterday.

We do not have (a) reported unplanned outage. The rotational brownouts in Cagayan de Oro city may be (due to) a generation problem,” said Ladaga.

The blackout affected areas under “Group 2” from the old road of Natumulan, El Mundo down to Casinglot, Tagoloan town in Misamis Oriental all the way to Barangay Lumbia, this city.

Affected were areas in Bugo, Puerto, Agusan, Balubal, Tablon, Baloy, Cugman, Gusa, Lapasan, Malasag, FS Catanico, Indahag, Macasandig, Mandumol, Taguanao, Nazareth, Carmen, Balulang, Lumbia, and the Divisoria and city hall area.

Cepalco said its load allocation had increased to manageable levels late last week resulting in a continuous power supply in the the city and parts of Misamis Oriental.

“However, the power situation throughout Mindanao is still unstable, and power supply curtailments are still being implemented all over Mindanao. Hence, Cepalco would like to caution all customers that should load levels exceed our allocation again, and NGCP requests for load dropping, Cepalco will be constrained to again implement rotating brownouts within its service area,” reads a Cepalco statement.

Ralph Paquio, Cepalco vice president, said Cepalco could not give the public assurances because the power distributor is dependent on the Mindanao grid, and on its allocation from NGCP.

Chavez released a new load shedding schedule that took effect yesterday until Aug. 2. Chavez said the schedule would depend on the actual load curtailment levels set by NGCP on Cepalco which changes every hour.

“When load levels are within allocation, Cepalco will not effect any interruption at all,” said Chavez who called on power consumers to conserve energy.