CONTROVERSIES OVER SOURCES OF POWER HEATS UP IN W. VISAYAS
MANILA, APRIL 22, 2008 (STAR) THE SOUTHERN BEAT By Rolly Espina - It’s not only the rice or price crisis that has been hitting Western Visayas. What has been raging here, especially Bacolod and Iloilo City, are the ongoing rows over sources of power. For one, in the case of Iloilo the coal-powered plant in the city.In Bacolod, on the other hand, General Negros Electric Cooperative president Roberto Montelibano has his hands full trying to explain how to address the intermittent brownouts that have been plaguing city residents.
But, insofar as that is concerned, Montelibano has not come up with any possible short-term solution to the power problem except to cite the contract with KEPCO-Salcon which still has to come up with its coal-powered plant in Cebu sometime next year.
Thus, for the moment, it is a standoff in Bacolod.
But there was a welcome intrusion into the controversy by members of the Philippine Mt. Everest Expedition team who batted for the use of geothermal energy to boost the powers needs of Negros.
The PNOC-EDC plant in Barangay Mailum, Bazo City, has been able to generate only some 4 to 5 megawatts. The expansion of its geothermal plant to a small portion of the Mt. Kanlaon National Park is still pending before the Sangguniang Panlalawigan.
Some environmental groups have been challenging that move, contending that it will affect the biodiversity of the park.
Members of the Mt. Everest team – Noelle Wenceslao, Carina Dayondon, Pastor Emata, Dr. Ted Esguerra and former DOTC undersecretary Art Valdez – said it was lucky that Negros still has geothermal power.
Esguerra and Emata said they first strongly opposed PNOC-EDC’s safe entry into Mt. Apo, but discovered later that it was beneficial to the area.
Mt. Apo is in Davao and South Cotabato in Southern Mindanao.
Thus, the possible intrusion into the Mt. Kanlaon National Park to tap its geothermal power for northern Negros points out the need for “sometimes something has to be affected for the greater good.”
Mt. Apo, Emata said, had balding slopes before, but the PNOC-EDC undertook a massive reforestation program in the area.
The more serious controversy is the proposed coal-powered plants in Iloilo City and the province. These are opposed not only by environmentalist groups but also the Church.
This was dramatized last week when Greenpeace activists dumped 200 kilos of coal at the entrance of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Quezon City and unfurled a banner calling on Secretary Lito Atienza “Don’t be a climate criminal.”
The activists demanded that Atienza reject all plans to construct a dangerous coal-fired plant in Iloilo City.
But Atienza asked for time to consider all the problem associated with the issue. So far, the Greenpeace has yet to come up with a doable alternative or the investor who could put up other than the coal-fueled plant as suggested by Global Power Corp.
While the row rages, Iloilo will continue to suffer from low power and intermittent outages.
Politics, politics
Because they are aware that Western Visayas has enough rice for the region, that may be reason why local politics seemed to have started their political skirmishes for 2010 early.
Thus, in the case of Iloilo, the Ilonggos eyes have been riveted for sometime now on the ongoing tiff between Iloilo Gov. Niel Tupas and his nephew, Vice Gov. Rex Suplico.
The standoff over the provincial budget has led to the filing of a case against Suplico. And worsened when Provincial Administrator Boy Mejorada challenged the vice governor to resign if he loses and offer his own resignation should the governor get an adverse ruling by the court and the budget department.
The latest was the rejection by Tupas of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan modified Annual Investment Plant.
Tupas turned it down because the only role of the SP is legislative authorization of the appropriation for the AIP.
The DILG, argued Tupas, has consistently ruled in a series of legal opinions that the SP has no power to modify, amend or revise any item or items in the AIP.
In short, Tupas has taken on Suplico and is contesting the right of the SP to approve Resolution No. 2008-004 approving the “Annual Investment Plan including its amendment for Calendar Year 2008.”
Well, if that is not enough, Bacolod, too, was caught by surprise by the reaction of city Mayor Evelio Leonardia to Sugar Regulatory Administrator Lito Coscolluela and Rep. Monico Puentevella accusing them of using the Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance for their political agenda for 2010.
The problem seems to be that Leonardia suspects that the consultative meeting at the Planta Central Bacolod Hotel Friday saw Coscolluela suggest that the conferees there either sue or initiate a recall of the mayor.
The meeting was supposed to be part of the Office of Civil Defense VI. But the way Leonardia interpreted it, the meeting ended up more as an anti-Leonardia political agenda with the Anti-Baha coalition as the battering ram.
Defense deputy administrator Dr. Anthony Golez attended the meeting. Leonardia, who was absent and was represented by executive assistant Joe Maria Vargas. He claimed Leonardia had not been invited to the conference but the OCD said the invitation was received by his office.
Rene Hinojales, an Anti-Baha member, walked out of the meeting because he failed to elicit answers to questions such as how many illegal structures the city has removed.
Coscolluela, himself an Anti-Baha member and one of the worst hit by the floods in the posh Sta. Clara subdivision, suggested the available options to either file a case against Leonardia or launch a recall campaign so that “you will see your mayor to work with you.”
That was the comment that stirred the hornet’s nest.
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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