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Friday, June 09, 2006
Capillas: Cursing the darkness
By Stephen Capillas
The Lowdown
THERE was nothing "ominous" in last Tuesday's massive power outage that struck hinterland barangays and subdivisions in Cagayan de Oro as well as most parts of Misamis Oriental, even if the brownout fell on that spooky date of "6/06/06."
As discussed last Tuesday, that number is the mark of the devil or the Anti-Christ, the man powered by the devil in the coming days of tribulation prophesied about in the Bible.
The massive brownouts, which struck last Tuesday, had a more rational (read: boring) explanation that was given by Transco spokesman Rufino Magbanua in a TV interview at ABS-CBN Northern Mindanao.
According to Magbanua, a power pole in El Salvador town, Misamis Oriental fell down causing that massive power outage. As to how and who or what was responsible for that falling pole, he said there was no evidence of sabotage (okay, we buy that for now).
The reason why repairs took so long, he said, was that repair crews all the way from Lanao del Sur had to be contacted to re-install that power pole.
Fortunately for tem and the consumers, there were no communist rebels out to sow havoc in sight.
Thus the 12-hour power outage that had the affected residents cursing to high heavens the darkness, the Misamis Oriental Rural Electric Service Cooperative-I or Moresco-II (they're practically the same, the residents point out) and especially Napocor.
While there were no reported incidents of anything "spooktacular" that occurred on that fateful night of 6/06/06, a woman resident claimed to have seen a pair of "evil red eyes" staring back at her as she woke up at midnight.
But if that's the case, then the "evil red eyes" came out at the wrong date since midnight means a new day or 6/07/06. So unless she's suffering from stigmatism, it stands to reason that those "evil red eyes" might be her not-so-friendly neighborhood "tikbalang" (the Filipino centaur or half-man, half-horse).
While this writer is tempted to suggest that the "evil red eyes" may have belonged to someone in our editorial room (she has that look whenever she gets gypped or hinted at by her less sympathetic co-workers) one can only withhold such claim until further evidence is shown.
Until then, one can only hope and prod Moresco I, Moresco II, the Cagayan de Oro Power and Light Co. (Cepalco) and all those other power utilities to prevent these things from happening.
These power utilities are duly obligated to report any power outages even if only through TV, radio or text notices. They earn millions in exchange for their services so it's a small price to pay for their lapses into failure--or incompetence, as not a few irate power consumers would loudly declare and affirm.
For comments nnd reactions, send them to sunspot12002@yahoo.com or warpath1232@yahoo.com
(June 9, 2006 issue)
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