Davao City revisited

DAVAO CITY: I flew in here last Thursday even with the thought that by the time I return to Cebu over the weekend I’m risking that flights could be cancelled due to Super Typhoon “Ruby” (international name Hagupit) which has the makings of Super Typhoon Yolanda. But Filipinos are good Christians and many are praying the “Oratio Emperata,” sending them via Facebook or other social media accounts or via text messages. So at this point we shouldn’t stop praying to God to let this storm pass over the Philippines, for we have grown tired and weary of natural disasters.

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We had perfect weather during our Cebu Pacific flight from Mactan to Davao and being on a window seat, I had fun taking photographs with my LG G3 mobile phone, which truly takes superb photos even from high up on a plane. Passing over Mindanao and looking at Cagayan de Oro from a very high altitude, one can immediately see how fertile green Mindanao is. I had a terrific view of Bukidnon as the plane made its approach to Davao City, which from the air has truly grown by leaps and bounds.

From my airplane window I pondered and wondered why the people of Mindanao have their fate and their future decided by Imperial Manila? For too long, glib tongued politicians who come from the north have called Mindanao the “Island of Promise.” They are the people who come and go and yet Mindanao has not gotten the peace it truly deserved. I’d like to say that peace can only come to Mindanao if the people of Mindanao themselves would have a powwow and sue for that peace themselves. 

 Of course my thoughts were about the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) whether this is acceptable to the people of Mindanao. My good friend, Sir Arthur Lopez who hails from Zamboanga City sent me a message to read my fellow STAR columnist Federico Pascual’s column last Thursday where he was asking that the BBL should go into a national plebiscite. Let me reprint that part of Pascual’s column;  

“A plebiscite was also held in the ARMM before it was launched in 1990 but this was in obedience to the 1987 Constitution that mandated the creation of the ARMM (and the Cordillera Autonomous Region in Luzon). This time around, however, there is no constitutional directive to create the Bangsamoro. On the contrary, the constitutionality of the Bangsamoro’s creation is likely to be challenged before the Supreme Court.” He is 101% correct. Let’s go for a national plebiscite on the BBL so we’ll know the sentiments of our people.

Arriving in Davao City I immediately found out that traffic here is just as congested as we are in Metro Cebu, although Metro Manila is still the King of the Hill when we talk about traffic congestion. But immediately you will feel a sense of discipline that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has imposed, especially on motorists who must strictly follow certain roads that have a maximum speed of only 30KPH. Clearly Davao City has grown economically that they don’t need Manila’s help to continue with their growth. Just like Cebu, we just need to be given the powers to do things ourselves! If this means shitting to a Federal system of governance… then so be it!

While in Davao City, I requested and old media friend of mine, Mr. Willy Rodolfo (formerly a Business reporter of Cebu Daily News) of Aboitiz Power (AP) and we were joined by Mr. Jason Magnaye, CSR Manager of AP (as Mr. Benjie Cariaso President of Therma South wasn’t available) to give us a tour of their soon-to-be-opened 300MW Therma South Thermal Power Plant, which is set for commercial operations by the first half of 2015.

When I was last here four-years ago…that place was a wilderness. Now it is a power plant that is 90% complete with engineers frantically preparing to put this clean coal plant energized early next year. Aboitiz Power (AP) partnered with Formosa Heavy Industries of Taiwan in coming up with a coal fired power plant where you can no longer see the coal when it arrives in the port as everything is covered and placed into a “Coal Dome” the first of its kind in the Philippines.

This type of power plant is a fluidized bed “Clean Coal” technology. It uses two types of water… Process water and cooling water. Process water is fresh water that is heated by coal to produce steam, which turns the generator to produce electricity. They use existing spring water for this purpose. The cooling water comes from the sea, which doesn’t come in contact with the coal and goes back into its own cooling system so when the sea water is returned to the sea, it goes back with the same temperature. Power generated from this plant will be supplied to the Mindanao grid via a switchyard just across the national highway. Thanks to AP, I’m sure that by the Year 2015, the sufferings of Davaoenos would finally ease up especially during summer.

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