THE Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry in Cebu suffered an estimated P60 million to P80 million in productivity loss due to the four-hour power blackout caused by a lightning strike on August 20, 2021.

Pert Cabataña, president of the Cebu IT-BPM Organization (CIB.O), called out the attention of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to explain the incident.

"The biggest victim was actually the IT-BPM. In the situation where we have our people working from home and there's no back-up facility, we were totally dead," he said.

Cabataña said in Cebu alone, he quantified the amount of loss in worth of production or output.

The NGCP Visayas blamed a lightning strike for the power interruption, which also affected parts of Leyte, Samar and Bohol. (JOB)