Jenalyn Castaño went to
bed early on Friday night since the province was plunged into darkness.
As soon as she awoke, she
reached from her bed and flicked the nearest light switch.
There was light.
 |
A student is using a
rechargeable flashlight
while studying her lesson. The province of Bohol
is
plunged into darkness after a strong earthquake
hit Leyte last Thursday. Leo Udtohan
|
"Nakurat ko kay naa
nay kuryente mao gi-charged nako dayun akong cellphon (I was surprised that there was already
electricity that is why I immediately charged my cellular phone)," said
Castaño, 30, who lives on Lamdagan Street in this city.
"Hopeful ko padayun
na unta ni nga musiga na (I am hopeful this will continue)"
Although power had resumed
in Bohol last Friday night but it was limited only in the capital city of
Tagbilaran and for a limited hours. An average six-hour rotational brownout had
been implemented in Tagbilaran due to acute power deficiency throughout Bohol
because of the shutdown of a geothermal power plant in Leyte, the province’s
main energy source.
Power barge
Local leaders said the
power supply in Bohol will be fully restored soon.
Acting provincial administrator
lawyer John Mitchell Boiser said Bohol has sought to harness energy from two
power barges which came from IloIlo City and General Santos City.
“That is another option to
address the power outage since the power lines in Leyte will take weeks to
restore,” said Boiser.
He said the power barge
from IloIlo City is expected to arrive in Bohol in three to seven days, while
the power barge from General Santos City would take about three weeks to reach
Bohol.
Boiser said officials of
the energy companies last Thursday inspected three proposed docking sites of
the power barges in Cortes, Maribojoc, and Loon towns.
Once the barges arrive and
are ready to operate, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP)
will then have to install lines to transmit power to electric distributors.
Each barge can generate up
to 32 megawatts of power.
Bohol has a power demand
of 70-80 megawatts, Boiser said.
In the meantime, Bohol
Light Company Inc., the main power distributor in Bohol, tapped Bohol Diesel
Power Plant (BDPP) in Barangay Dampas, Tagbilaran to supply power in the city
although its capacity was not enough to meet the demand. The SPC Island Power Corporation
which owns the BDPP was given provisional authority to operate by the Energy
Regulatory Commission (ERC) last week.
 |
Residents have been hit by
the double whammy
of a power blackout and the subsequent
water service
interruption after the Leyte earthquake.
Leo Udtohan
|
The BDPP’s capacity to
release power to the province’s capital was granted following an appeal made by
the provincial board members, according to Totsie Escobia, provincial
information officer.
Escobia said the request
was also expedited through the efforts of Gov. Edgar Chatto, who was in Canada
for an official function. Bohol has been and still is dependent on its power
supply from Malitbog Geothermal Plant in Leyte province being connected with
submarine cable from Maasin City to President Carlos P. Garcia island town of
Bohol.
Power requirement for
Bohol was between 70-80 MW during peak hours, said May Hope Arcenal, BLCI spokesperson.
Bohol has three hydro
plants in Hanopol in Balihan town, Loboc town and Sevilla town with a combined
capacity of less than 10MW.
Arcenal said BDPP can generate up to 12 MW
which was alternately distributed by the BLCI to its consumers in Tagbilaran
City. But it was not enough since Tagbilaran's power demand was 25 MW, she
added.
Some areas in Tagbilaran
City had power for only an hour due to limited supply and high demand. Arcenal
said mall owners and big establishments in the city used generator sets to help
maximize the power. Water was also a problem that residents stormed
supermarkets and water refilling stations to buy potable water. Arcenal said
water is also rationed in some barangays.
 |
| Tagbilaran residents are waiting for water until dawn. Photo by Leo Udtohan |
The Bohol Electric
Cooperatives 1 and 2 also started to ration electricity to its consumers.
Double whammy
Residents affected by the
power outage also lost flowing potable water.
Many residents on Lamdagan
Street in Cogon were carrying their containers as they lined-up to wait for
their turn to get water from the water tankers sent by the city government to
ration water to the affected areas.
The community is among the
15 barangays (villages) in the city that are affected by the temporary water
supply cut-off.
“We have endure the long line because we don’t
have water in the house,” said 15-year-old Jezzrel Taal, 15, about the water
service interruption, on Saturday afternoon.
Residents along Graham
Avenue in Barangay Booy also queued for their water ration until Saturday
night. Others went home when the fire truck didn’t return.
“It doesn’t matter if we
don’t have electricity for as long as we have water,” said Bebei Lim, 46.
The Bohol Water Utilities,
Inc. (BWUI) in Tagbilaran City used portable generator sets to power one of the
water pumping stations along the J.A. Clarin-Dao road for its consumers. But
the supply was limited to few areas.
People bought mineral
water at P30 to P50 per container instead of the usual P15 to P20 in water
refilling stations.
The owners said the
increase in prices was due to the added cost since they were using generator
sets to operate.
Some residents would go to
Caingget Beach and Bulok-Bulok Spring to wash their clothes and take a bath.
But Mia Cadenas, 59, a
resident of Barangay Sto. Nino in San Miguel town said many coped with the
situation.
“We were getting used to
not having any electricity. The big problem was we could no longer watch our
favorite telenovelas,” said Cadenas.
The water service
interruption was not a big deal for some since they could still get clean water
from the deep well and spring.
Stores in Tagbilaran and
municipal halls also offered free charging of
cellphones.
In Jagna town, Councilor
Anthony Aniscal allowed residents to charge their cellphones for free using his
generator set.
Tourism affected
The tourism industry has
been affected by the power outage.
Resort owners and
operators in Panglao Island, the province’s tourism jewel, complain that the constant
power outage in the province is cutting down the number of tourists visiting
the area.
 |
Resort owner Dr. Doloreich
Dumaluan says the power crises
has affected his resort in Panglao town. Leo Udtohan
|
Dr. Doloreich Dumaluan,
owner of Dumaluan Beach Resort 2, said they had several booking cancellations
due to the unstable power supply in the province.
Dumaluan Beach Resort 2 is
a six-hectare property in Barangay Bolod in Panglao which was established in
1998. “Definitely, we are affected by the power interruption.
Although it is business as
usual here, our tourist arrival declined due to power and water issues,” said
Dumaluan. Dumaluan said that the decline started during the Abu Sayyaf
infiltration last April.
The military forces killed
all the Abu Sayyaf members in Inabanga town on the northern tip of Bohol, about
81 km from Panglao where tourists would usually go. Dumaluan said they had been
relying mainly on three generator sets which were very costly to operate for
his 107 rooms.
They are spending P30,000
to P50,000 daily for fuel to run the generators.
“We have no other choice
since we need to cater the needs of our guests who are staying in our resort,”
said Dumaluan. Most of the guests are Europeans.
Dumaluan is calling on the
government to help address the power situation in the province.
In case for Panglao,
Boheco 1 is distributing power in Panglao town with at least 6 megawatts.
Dumaluan is urging for a power plant to be centrally located in Bohol as the
province is only relying on power plants based in Eastern Visayas.
“Now that Leyte is
affected, Bohol is also affected. They have to not only listen now, they have
to learn not only to learn but to work now because this happened thrice
already,” he said.
The first was on Oct. 15,
2013 when the province was hit by a magnitude 7.2 tremor that brought Bohol to
its knees. The next month, Supertyphoon “Yolanda” hit most parts of the Visayas
and affected the power suply on Nov. 8, 2013.
More than three years
later, another strong earthquake hit Leyte province on July 6 but still
affected Bohol. Smarting from the Bohol earthquake and Yolanda, Dumaluan
purchased three generator sets for his resorts. He also put up his own
wastewater treatment facility and a seven-meter long and four-meter wide water tank.
“But it is still not enough,” he said.
But the effect on smaller
beach resorts was worse. A resort owner (who asked for anonymity) said her
guests left the resort due to the brownout and inability of water.
“It is hurting us because
this is causing financial setback on our part,” she said.
Davon (family name
withheld upon his request), a Russian guest, said he had to cut short his
three-day Bohol trip.
“I have no choice here,”
he said, because he could not sleep well with the noise coming from the
generator set.
But Josephine
Remolador-Cabarrus, head of the Bohol Tourism Office, assured that the power
crisis in Panglao was just temporary since the provincial government was
closely coordinating with the Department of Energy to speed up the restoration
of power in Bohol.
She said that Bohol was
able to respond the power outage in 2013 that lasted for a month. The
province's tourism industry then bounced back in 2015 and 2016.
“Considering that tourism
is very resilient industry, it would somehow bounce back. We always have to
hope even they said that hope is the greatest sin, but hope is the thing that
will get us going. I know the industry will bounce back,” she said.
***
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