Like COVID surges, blackouts recur

Our weather forecasters are spot on in declaring the summer season in our country is ending. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) announced last week our rainy season that usually starts June actually sets in promptly as if on cue. In fact, the fourth tropical cyclone has entered the Philippine area of responsibility.

Classified as tropical depression “Dante,” it unleashed rains and floods in Mindanao where it entered south of the country. As of yesterday, “Dante” is in Samar and Eastern Visayas as it crosses the country in a direction going back to the Pacific Ocean.

Without the usual flooding, the heavy rainfall could only be a welcome relief. The rainshower cooled us down from the very hot and humid weather we went through the summer months.

The onset of the rainy period in our country is also the season when many Filipinos fall ill of water-borne diseases like diarrhea and common communicable diseases like colds and coughs, to more serious cases of flu and pneumonia. These are the same illnesses that are either the symptoms or complications of the deadly coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) infection. This is not to mention a high incidence of dengue – caused by certain mosquito bites – during the rainy season in our country.

Hopefully by this time, our government authorities have already laid out contigency plans on how to carry out the on-going anti-COVID vaccination program during this rainy period. This is a most urgent concern of local government units (LGUs), especially in disaster-prone areas in our country. The LGUs are the principal implementors of the on-going vaccination campaign in the government’s responses to control the continuing spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, the anti-COVID campaign is spearheaded by the national government through the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging and Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) headed no less by President Rodrigo Duterte. Last Monday night, President Duterte announced at Malacanang the latest quarantine classifications in various provinces and regions as recommended by the IATF.

Many provinces and regions are now classified as modified general community quarantine (MGCQ). Areas placed under MGCQ require lesser restrictions on people, places and events while the country remains under public health crisis spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic. The MGCQ is supposed to be the last step to the “new normal” while the COVID-19 contagion is not totally eradicated yet.

As of latest tally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded a total of more than three million deaths across the globe since the COVID-19 pandemic started in March last year.

By previous experience, the IATF had already adapted and built into the existing government disaster response measures the necessary minimum health and other anti-COVID protocols. These are necessary steps to implement especially in evacuation centers where people are housed temporarily and to protect disaster and relief workers as well.

Actually, an average of at least 22 typhoons batter the Philippines, spread out in a stretch of one year. Due to global warming and climate change, the dry and wet seasons in the country either come too early or late, and could last longer.

With severe thunderstorm last Saturday night, we suddenly found ourselves without electricity around 10 p.m. Checking the cause of the blackout, we discovered a major transformer blew up in our village neighborhood. Thankfully, the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) repair crew were quickly dispatched and after about two hours, power supply was restored. What we did not expect was a full-blown blackout, which occurred two days later over the entire city of Paranaque. This time, it was not just a house transformer.

With many employees now into work-from-home scheme following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can just imagine how people can work without electricity. Thus, when we had un-announced blackout last Monday electricity-dependent activities from trade, industries, and businesses grinded to full stop.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday blamed the high heat index that greatly pushed up power demand with higher usage of electricity-run appliances from electric fans, airconditioners, refrigerators etc. Apparently, there was not enough power supply to meet the higher demand for electricity. The DOE reported maintenance work and unscheduled outages of key power plants in Luzon and low gas pressure from the Malampaya also contributed to power supply problems serving the Luzon grid.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) warned yesterday there would likely be more power interruptions in Luzon due to a lack of supply amid persistent hot weather. The NGCP is a privately-owned corporation in charge of operating, maintaining, and developing the country’s state-owned power grid. The NGCP disclosed they were coordinating with concerned power distributors and cooperatives so they can make adjustments.

The NGCP is one of the more successful spin-off companies from the erstwhile National Power Corp. (Napocor) that was chopped into various parts under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA). Now a privately-run consortium, the NGCP holds a 25-year concession contract and a 50-year franchise to operate the country’s power transmission network.

The generation companies (or gencos) consisting of Napocor spin-off base-load power plants were sold to private sector companies. Supposedly, there are now more power plants supplying us with our electricity requirements and more. The EPIRA precisely sought to put an end to this dark era of our energy production in the 1990’s.

When things go wrong all at the same time, these structural reforms undertaken to upgrade our power supply generation capacity could go down the drain. Worse, the recurrence of rotating blackouts in our country could spell disaster for our COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery.

It would be like COVID-19 surges all over again.