By Amado P. Macasaet
The worst power shortage in this country happened in the regime of President Cory Aquino. She inherited part of the problem from the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. At that time, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was coming close to completion. Charges of over-pricing and hatred for whatever good or evil the fallen leader did forced abandonment of the plant supplied by Westinghouse of the United States. Nobody was ever sent to court for the crime of over-pricing.
The successor of Mrs. Aquino, President Fidel V. Ramos asked for emergency powers to address the shortage. He got the powers. Generating plants were constructed without public bidding.
The country was temporarily relieved from power outages. But emergency powers did not seem enough for a long lasting solution.
The country is again faced with darkness. Latest reports show we would need at least 400 more megawatts to address the shortage.
What do these things tell us about our leaders? Incompetence marked by naked lack of foresight. That is what they tell us.
What is so difficult or mind boggling in determining with accuracy the power needs of this country in say the next 10 to 15 years?
To us who do not know anything about electricity except use it, the state, at the time the power crisis began to be felt, should have know the annual consumption, the annual growth and what additional reserves may be necessary to address “emergencies” that occur when a power plant is temporarily shut down for periodic repairs.
Nothing of that kind of study was ever done. In fact, the replacement of the 600MW nuclear plant never figured in addressing the power problem. In fact no study was ever made to make sure the problem does not rear its ugly head again.
We would have avoided the recurrence of the problem if we learned from the lessons of the past, including the abandonment of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
Those lessons would have forced authorities to determine with accuracy the annual power needs of the country based on current demand and growth of such demand.
The short and longer-term requirements would have been accurately determined.
They should be the basis for the construction of more generating plants by the private sector or the government, if private money is shy for whatever reason. That basic duty was never performed.
Now we are facing darkness again. Again, the solution, according to the Department of Energy is for the President to be granted emergency powers by Congress to address the problem.
The truth is, the need for power is always an emergency It does not need emergency solutions in the, form of emergency powers.
Simple sense is all we need. For why shouldn’t the state be in readiness to make available so vital a commodity like electricity?
The only non-excuse is simple absent-mindedness on so basic a service. Does the secretary of energy believe that emergency powers will solve the problem? If he does, he shows one and all the government he serves cannot plan ahead.
Emergency powers will not solve the problem. By the very meaning of the word “emergency”, Secretary Petilla is giving a patchwork solution to a long-term problem.
It is a political solution to a problem that the people should never have saddled with in the first place.
Emergency powers circumvent the law on public bidding. The government will pick a favored group on conditions the businessman proposes and the government accepts.
The conditions are not subject to public scrutiny. Emergency powers can breed corruption. If corruption is possible in projects won in public bidding, it is a near certainty corruption will happen when a proponent is arbitrarily picked in the exercise of emergency powers.
In extreme cases we might look the other way in exchange for adequate supply of electricity. Adequate for the moment or in the period that supply is made adequate.
But as said earlier, there should be anticipation of how much more power we will need in how many more years.
These things do not sit squarely in the exercise of emergency powers. Which means at the rate the state is managing electricity supply, there will be more emergency powers in the future.
If we did not succumb to the haters of Ferdinand Marcos, we would have had 600 MW of power that may well be enough for the needs of the entire island of Luzon for a given number of years.
Saddest of all is the fact that the people allegedly involved in the overpricing of the equipment for the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant were never even investigated.
The overpayment to Westinghouse would have been a subject of international arbitration. We did not even think that far.
Seventy percent of energy in Taiwan is nuclear. Not considering nuclear electricity is more clean than power produced by fossils and coal, the raw material for nuclear power is remarkably cheaper.
If that is so, there should be a nuclear power plant in each of the three major islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
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Email:amadomacasaet@yahoo.com
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