Why electric towers are bombed

Ruffy Magbanua

LONG before bombings became a fad among terrorists, the toppling of electric pylons in Mindanao were already making havoc, sending the stewards of power transmission facilities to call for SOS,  helplessly  as always–at  the consumers’ expense.

In fact, bombings of electric towers these days have become a favorite past time, a source of livelihood to some unscrupulous individuals whom we tagged as the new “ETs” (electric terrorists) of the century who have invaded Mindanao.

These ETs have perfected the art of dismantling power lines using hi-tech gadgets to detonate various sizes of home-made powerful bombs.

So why are  power lines, stretching far and wide in the mountain vastness of Mindanao the easy prey of electric terrorists?

It’s all about money. Let’s try to extract one logical reason down memory lane. When the National Power Corp. (Napocor) constructed power lines in Mindanao in the late ’50s, right-of-way (ROW) negotiations were done easy and payment came too handy without so much fuss from land owners and claimants.

More so when martial law was  declared in 1972,  erection of power lines continued and there was light all over Mindanao.

But development has its price tag.  Over time, right-of-way problems came one after another. Land claimants, coming out from nowhere, mushroomed and there it was–Napocor and then later, the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) had to face a mountain load of landelated concerns particularly in highly volatile areas in Mindanao.

Unsolved up to this day, ROW concerns were inherited unwittingly by the  National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), a creation of Epira. The bombings of electric pylons are products of arrogance and ineptitude of government to address the pressing problem of land conflict in Mindanao.

Now, the blame game is all over as towers continue to fall down one after another. Of late, a tower has been toppled down, bringing to two at the onset of 2016, and maybe, more towers are going to fall flat on the ground–thanks but no thanks to the fickle-mindedness of PNoy and his brand of governance.

The non-stop bombings of electric pylons in Mindanao is not a joke to  be taken lightly.  The time has come for the government to take over before anything else, before everything gets loose wildly enough that no amount of mitigating measures could put a stop to the hissings of homegrown ETs before everything becomes unstoppable, and before it’s too late to fan off the burning flame of bombs planted in every electric pylon all over Mindanao. The over-all effect then would be devastating. God forbid.