Sanity lost
(Re-published with friendly permission from the publisher)
EDITORIAL
Dabawenyos are not particularly in the right mood at this time so be careful when dealing with them. Some are walking around like zombies after spending hours without sleep, waiting for precious power to come back so they can finally go to sleep, if that makes sense at all. Others are in the mood to rant, and most of it directed towards the people in the power industry. The social media, especially Facebook, is filled with rants and memes making a mockery of the city’s power providers. Some even mocked the city’s “life is here” slogan with memes saying “but light is not here.” Except for lack of water, nothing can rile people the most than long hours of power interruption.
Business is seriously affected with losses estimated at millions a day. The Davao Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. has not yet made an assessment as to how much its members are losing since the rotating brownouts started several days ago. Big businesses are bound to lose big time. But then again, small businesses suffer more even if they have smaller losses because they have little capital to start with and most are operating on the red. With these long brownouts, some of these businesses can close down even before Therma South Inc. gets its act together, or even before the heavens shower us with lots of rain.
The Davao Light and Power Company asked Dabawenyos to be more patient as they only have to bear with the five-hour rotating power interruptions until April 21 when TSI 1 gets repaired. However, there is still no reason to do the rain dance and rejoice because even if the coal-fired power plant is back full operation, there will still be brownouts albeit shortened to three hours. Now people are starting to question Davao City’s claim as the best place to invest in and do business. After all, El Niño is nothing new so those in the power industry should have known how to address its effects on power generation a long time ago. While people are worried about the billions of losses in the economy, perhaps we should be more worried about people losing their sanity.
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