IN TRYING to solve the present power shortage situation the government is grappling with the problem it has sadly inherited from past administrations.
By the way the government is now talking about emergency measures when they should have acted even before the emergency power situation hit the country. To stop the present crisis the government has said it intends to deploy power barges to places in the South that are already feeling the pain of the problem.
If memory serves me right, this same stop-gap measure was resorted to by government in the past when it could no longer find the electricity to power businesses and light up homes. Plus the fact that they later discovered that power barges are very expensive and inefficient as the experts predicted. Besides it provides no lasting solution to the crisis and that’s precisely why we still have it today.
A power expert has said now that power supplies are low, we have become target victims of the same independent power producers that entered into lopsided contracts with the government during the administration of former President Ramos.
Ramos, and this is where the power inheritance problem is being traced, had no choice but to end the power crisis he inherited from President Cory Aquino’s administration, which probably did not think the power situation was that bad, either, even if people were already suffering from 12-hour power outages during that time.
Now that we’re back to the bad, old days of brownouts, it’s good to be reminded that the government really has no excuse for its failure to plan ahead and the continuation of this legacy of power failures is certainly something that not only the Arroyo government must answer in its last days.