LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

Transco’s blackouts in jueteng areas
March L. Fianza

Last week’s Kapihan was very revealing as officials representing the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) made empty and unapologetic statements about the infamous blackout in the afternoon of May 25, 2007. The five-hour power blackout drew the ire of an electric consuming public.

This interrupted activities in factory businesses inside the EPZA and Texas Instruments that are tapped to Transco, computer and night schools that had no choice but to tell their students to go home and newsmen on their deadlines. Certainly, the blackout destroyed electrical appliances of private homes and commercial establishments in Baguio and Benguet.

No one is complaining yet but if ordinary consumers together with EPZA and TI sue for damages. The astounding amount may come up to millions. This, in addition to the conservative P10 million lost in the operations of the Benguet Electric Cooperative. Additional damages may also be filed in court due to unavoidable circumstances that may have affected any consumer.

Transco’s reasons for not making any apologies were varied, even as the media insisted for it. One of the employees whose name is not worth mentioning even if he draws his salaries from our taxes said, they were not authorized to make apologetic statements. Well, were they “authorized” to shut up? In a democracy that hides away from the truth, that is understandable.

Another reason I gathered was that all decisions are crafted in Manila before the same is handed down to the region for execution. If this is the manner by which some agencies treat problems, then we will never realize the government’s program on local empowerment.

By the way, we are reminded of national leaders talking about empowering regional, provincial or local governments. But this ends up as mere lip service today as LGUs stay powerless over regional line agencies that are “ordered to shut up.” Capability building is restrained in areas outside of Imperial Manila. Decisions can not be made because workers in the regional level are merely robots or non-humans. They do not have brains of their own.

Certainly in the past, Beneco was blamed for power outages that were not of its own doing. Of course, apart from the brownouts that are published, there are unscheduled brownouts due to accidents and natural causes. We have read reports of Beneco being regretful for “unannounced” brownouts. In some cases, it even paid for the damages caused by unscheduled brownouts.

The May 25 five-hour blackout is not an isolated case. Similar instances that the consuming public did not know may have happened before. This time, Beneco decided to announce who the culprit was. The blackout was due to a line that snapped because it became overloaded when Transco tapped on that line. Beneco claimed that it was not aware of Transco’s activity and so it “can not apologize for blackouts caused by the mistakes of others.”

For Transco, I found out more about her character. The “professionals” of the money-making corporation that is supposedly the model in the government’s privatization efforts, made sure that their statements did not give away any apologies for the blackout. Neither were there any assurances that the thoughtlessness would never be repeated. That means electric consumers would have to brace themselves for unannounced brownouts in the future. Of course, we expect future display of more arrogance.

Normal beings admit their mistakes and apologize for it. Why it is taking too long for Transco, an ISO certified company, to admit its bloopers has its own reason known only to her. We hope to hear answers to this unresolved issue in the following weeks from sources in Transco, Beneco and maybe even from TI and EPZA.
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How come jueteng now consists of 38 numbers? Please do not tell me that the operators have patterned their 1-37 operations after the Bingo sa Barangay of the ABC headed by Punong Barangay Raffy Panagan. Or is it the other way around? Or jueteng and the Bingo sa Barangay are one and the same?

Now if the two are mixed up then we can not blame our policemen for not raiding any of them because they too are confused. Or are they part of the mix-mix operations? Bingo sa Barangay ceased operations during elections but jueteng did not. When it came back to life after the elections, jueteng’s bet numbers became 1-38.

Now, bettors do not care if they gamble their money on either of the two. They are the same banana, they say. Maybe, even the operators are one and the same. The only difference is that this time, a certain Marasigan of long ago is back with them. And only the last syllables of the operators’ names have the same sound and spelling. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com