North Cotabato LGUs, residents slam hours-long brownouts

MANILA, Philippines –  About 6000 demonstrators  took to the streets on Thursday, May 1, in protest of the 10-12 hours of brownouts in North Cotabato.

The protesters, residents from Pigcawayan, Pikit, Alamada, Libungan, Midsayap and Aleosan (PPALMA) municipalities, demanded that the Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco)-PPALMA management and administrators explain why they “punish” the residents with the brownouts.

“PaLIWANAG mo (explain)!” they chanted a play on words that also referred to “light.”

The protesters also slammed Cotelco for “harassing” them with high monthly electric bills and refusing to provide brownout schedules.

Protesters asked the cooperative to conduct an emergency general assembly, face the consumers, and address their demands.

Protest organizer Karl Ballentes, a college instructor, said that the people’s impatience toward Cotelco’s poor service grew when the hours-long brownouts started in January.

“We have seen the dissatisfaction of the people. We thought as a core group, we could come up with something like a social action to get the national attention,” Ballentes said.

Organizers of the protest include personalities from different sectors including education, business, and local governments.

They also turned to social media to mobilize public support.

Local economy suffers

The local economy in the province is badly hit by the brownouts, with business owners spending much of their revenues on gasoline or generator sets, Rolly Sacdalan said in an interview via Facebook.

Sacdalan, a local businessman, said he has been spending about P30,000 for 500 liters of gasoline daily.

He said that some businesses cannot survive if the local power crisis continues.

“There (had been) closures among the smaller businesses like internet cafes and parlors because of the brownouts,” he said.

Call for DOE’s action

Libungan Vice Mayor Onggie Pader said that the local government and other protesters are taking the issue to the national level.

“The local government unit of Libungan passed a resolution on April 3 encouraging other LGUs to support the call to elevate the concern to the Department of Energy (DOE),” Pader explained.

The protesters are expecting from the DOE an immediate solution to the power shortage in their province.

“The underlying reason why the rally got us moving is the great dissatisfaction of the people, the 10-14 hours of brownout is unjust and it’s causing so much inconvenience across sectors,” the vice mayor added.

Cotelco earlier said in a Mindanews report that the power shortage is a result of hydroelectric power plants drying up in the summer heat, worsened by the preventive maintenance of a geothermal power plant of the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) in Mount Apo. – Rappler.com