Energy crisis looming?
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Zenaida A Amador
AS if we didn’t have enough on our plates these days, Senate President Franklin Drilon announced while addressing the Manila Overseas Press Club that Filipinos may soon have to deal with a power crisis worse than what we experienced during the early 90s.
And, if we remember, during those times, we had as long as 10-hour blackouts. Those were hard times, as far as power was concerned.
Even small businesses like beauty parlors, machine shops, all businesses that used electricity (and what doesn’t) all suffered because the operating time to do business was cut by more than half.
And what about big businesses which constantly need power? And what about prospective investors who will certainly be turned off by the lack of that most valuable infrastructure — electricity?
Nobody will want to do business in a country with no electricity. And all this, at a terrible time of financial crisis, spells disaster for us all.
Now, some may not like Franklin Drilon for being the bearer of bad news, but, hey, we can’t "kill the messenger" here.
The Senate President has always been a serious, responsible man. We should heed his words, and government should certainly think of ways to avert the crisis. Those in charge of energy should lose no time to find solutions. They just have to. In fact, they should have started
posted by philpower @ 1:17 PM,