More than a month of self-indulgence is long enough, I believe. It’s time to look at local and national issues.
Yes, I have been partly in denial about what our country has been forced to go through.
Some issues — like the illegal war the US is waging against Iran in the Middle East that has caused oil prices to go through the roof, or the forest fires in Indonesia that have degraded our air quality — are completely out of our hands.
The same can be said of the extreme weather the archipelago is experiencing. Fields in the Visayas and Mindanao are cracking because of the lack of rain, while in Luzon farmlands are inundated with it.
These are all occurrences beyond our control. Force majeure, the French call it.
And you know what that means. No amount of ranting and raving on our part will have any bearing on the situation. At best, we can hope and pray that things will get better soon. Some do whatever suits their fancy to cope with the hand they’re dealt. And because we’re in the Philippines, many sing. Many drink. I personally prefer to do both.
Many of us don’t have the luxury of time to wallow in self-pity. We have no choice but to move on to where another challenge awaits. Because, let’s face it, that’s how it is here. We can’t lead normal, boring lives. There has to be drama around every corner. If it’s not a typhoon, it’s an earthquake. Or a drought. Or a volcanic eruption. Name a disaster and we have it on our menu.
Somehow, in the midst of all this mayhem and chaos, we have learned to laugh in the face of danger. Sure, there’s a maniacal hint to our guffaws, but guffaw we do — especially when we’re confronted with problems of our own making.
Because we’re not content with just natural disasters; we have to have man-made ones, too.
Who can ignore the rotational blackouts that Cebuanos have had to endure these past few weeks? And yes, what we have been experiencing is a blackout and not a brownout, which refers to a temporary drop in electrical voltage. It has nothing to do with semantics. Somehow, sometime in the past — probably during the martial law era or maybe during the dark days of the Second World War — someone thought it would be smart-alecky to refer to a blackout as a brownout, perhaps to highlight the irony of the situation.
For someone who grew up in the late 1970s, though, blackouts were no big deal. Back then, candles, lamps and flashlights were household staples. When they happened at night and the moon was out, we kids would take to the streets to play tago-tago or tubig-tubig. And then blackouts became few and far between, until such time as years would pass before one would occur.
I personally thought the problem had disappeared altogether, only to reappear with a vengeance in the wake of typhoon Odette, which struck Cebu on Dec. 16, 2021. We in Sambag 1 were without power for a month, but we didn’t complain much. We knew the storm had devastated the power infrastructure and that the utility provider was working round the clock to fix the matter.
But the same cannot be said of our current predicament.
The rolling darkness enveloping the metro is a smoke alarm for a Visayas power grid running dangerously on zero reserves. Simply put, demand blew right past capacity, key power plants choked out and the expected lifeline from Mindanao was barely a drip.
Blaming the utility provider is not only an exercise in futility, but is actually barking up the wrong tree. You can’t expect it to deliver electricity that is not available.
Fortunately, the situation is not as hopeless as it may seem. Cebu 3rd District Rep. Karen Hope Garcia and Deputy House Speaker Alfredo “Albee” Benitez of Bacolod City have filed resolutions seeking a formal congressional inquiry to dig out the root causes behind the worsening rotational blackouts, demand accountability for the power interruptions and examine threats of steep spikes in electricity rates.
Then again, there have been several congressional hearings to look into different matters — like the recent flood control scandal — which basically amounted to nothing as the investigations descended into procedural violations and internal political infighting.
I will keep my fingers crossed, though. Again, I am not naïve to think this problem would be solved anytime soon. In the meantime, I hope I still have some song hits lying around while I brush up on my guitar playing under the cover of flickering candlelight. Of course, with my favorite drink within arm’s reach.