Power outages in Davao
by Blogie • 4 December 2007
Up until this year, brownouts were rare in Davao City. Well, when I was in high school it was rather common, even expected, especially during summer. But for years, Davao has enjoyed practically zero brownouts since then.
The Davao Light & Power Co. is even an awardee for being one of the best power companies in the Philippines.
But now, in the past couple of weeks there have been 4 or 5 power outages that I’ve noticed. Just before I started writing this article there was no power in the Matina area. Electricity went dead around 2o’clock in the afternoon, and came back on almost half an hour later. What is the reason behind this? Is Davao Light upgrading their systems? Or am I being overly optimistic?
Or is it that Davao — possibly Mindanao — is experiencing a serious shortage of power supply?
It’s obvious, but I’d like to emphasize this: power is a resource that we need to be constant. It’s what drives and sustains economic development. Without a steady availability of electric power, it becomes frustratingly costly to run businesses. Communication is slowed down… business processes are hindered… and yet, expenses skyrocket when power supply is not an assured thing.
Let’s not even go into the damage brownouts cause to household appliances…
How will Davao be able to encourage more high-value businesses to be established if this is the case? How will we attract more investments to come in if we cannot properly assure potential investors of steady and reliable power? What’s more worrisome is that, big-ticket investors are not easily assuaged: more than adequate power, they seem to want to be assured that there is an excess supply of power.
Look around Davao City — scores of construction projects are in the works. Take note of the increasing volume of vehicles now plying our streets. These are clear indications of development. But is this sustainable? And for how long?
Without the necessary and, at the least, adequate infrastructure (electric power being one of the most important of them), Davao City will not be able to maintain this forward movement as much as we expect.
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