Due to blackout; Bohol put under state of calamity

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines — To cushion the adverse impact of prolonged brownouts on the local economy, Bohol officials placed the entire province under a "state of calamity" yesterday.

Governor Edgar Chatto, in a press briefing, said: "The declaration—eight days after the province plunged into total blackout following the July 6 earthquake in Leyte—is necessary in order to facilitate the release of funds from the national government, which will subsidize the cost of transporting and installing power barges, which are considered as a short-term remedy of power shortage here."

He added: "With Bohol under a state of calamity, we could utilize resources in order to help ease the burden of our people."

Chatto noted that a diesel-fired power barge from Iloilo and another one from Davao are expected to arrive in Bohol in a week or two to fill in the power supply vacuum triggered by the damaged power plants in Leyte.

Members of the Provincial Board, in a resolution passed en masse during Friday's regular session, anchored their decision to place Bohol under a state of calamity on a memo issued by the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) in 1998.

NDCC Memo Order No. 4, series of 1998, allows the calamity declaration when there is "disruption of lifelines such as electricity, potable water system, transport system, communications system and other related systems which cannot be restored within one week, except for highly-urbanized areas where restoration of  the above lifelines cannot be made within 24 hours."

The memo also says that "When two or more municipalities or cities are affected by a disaster, the Provincial Board (Sanggunian Panlalawigan), upon the recommendation of the Provincial Governor, may declare the entire province or a portion thereof under a state of calamity."

"In areas declared under a state of calamity either by the President of the Local Chief  Executives (LCEs), the 5 percent reserve fund for emergency operations shall be utilized for this purpose by the local government unit (LGU) concerned. National Calamity Funds may be released to augment local funds for relief and rehabilitation efforts of affected LGUs," according to the NDCC memo.

The PB resolution, approved on Friday, stated that President Rodrigo Duterte and concerned national government agencies were requested to help Bohol subsidize the cost of restoring power to the province.

Without fund subsidy from the national government, Boholano consumers will have to assume the cost of transporting and installing power barges, which will be reflected on top of their regular monthly utility bill issued by the Bohol Electric Cooperatives 1 and 2 and the Bohol Light Co., Inc.---the three power distributors here.   

Except for Tagbilaran City, almost all of the 47 towns in Bohol have been wallowing in darkness since July 6 after Leyte was hit with a 6.5 magnitude earthquake that damaged power transmission lines and transformers owned by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), and the geothermal power plants owned by the Energy Development Corporation (EDC).

Bohol receives its power through the Leyte-Bohol Interconnection Grid, a mammoth submarine cable installed in 2004, which has the capacity to transmit 100MW of power from Leyte to Ubay through its Ubay, Bohol substation.

A daily power requirement of 70 to 80MW is supplied to Bohol's 47 towns and the capital city of Tagbilaran through the three electric distribution companies.

Following the July 6 tremor, people's lives and the economic activities in Bohol have been seriously disrupted after Leyte-Bohol Interconnection Grid stopped supplying power to the province of 1.3 million people.

While waiting for power supply to be restored, Tagbilaran City and few of nearby towns get power from a reactivated but old Bohol Diesel Power Plant, and the province's three retiring mini-hydro plants, all of which have a combined output of 20MW only. (FREEMAN)