Since the time of Thomas Edison, the electricity industry is already been a permanent feature in politics. Before Pearl Street (his pioneering streetlight project) ever opened, Edison had to bribe New York politicians to begin laying the foundations of his work.
As Time magazine recounts, Edison “obtained with great difficulty the consent of New York’s famously corrupt city government to build his proposed network on the southern tip of Manhattan.” As the early electricity industry grew, it became more involved with city politics over lighting contracts. Electricity providers had to receive franchise rights from city officials to serve local areas, opening the door for those officials to extort power companies for campaign contributions or personal bribes.
The year was 1882.
Fast forward to Occidental Mindoro. Present time.
Centuries have already passed as it proves that electricity and politicians are inseparable, with due respect to its deniers and pretenders from both ends.
The Island Power Corporation (IPC) controversy is the mother liquor of this sourest situation of a power failure and brownouts in the province. This situation is just the offshoot of a series of awfully debauched business decisions taken by the previous Board of Directors and management of OMECO since 1993. It all started when the OMECO BOD entered into a one-sided Contract or Energy Conversion Agreement (ECA) with Island Power Corporation (IPC) on December 10, 1993. The ECA guaranteed an onerous 25-year term (with the option to extend) to the latter, without providing for a “termination clause” that would have allowed OMECO to “automatically” rescind or terminate the ECA in case IPC failed to fulfill its obligations, without having to seek judicial recourse. A political titan represents the IPC, the former Governor Jose T. Villarosa.
The Power Supply Agreement (PSA) between Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (OMECO) and the Emerging Power Incorporated (EPI), Philippines, was signed February 28, 2014, at Sikatuna Beach Hotel in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. According to Rep. Josephine Y. Ramirez Sato, EPI assured them then that by 2015, we would be getting an additional 3.3 MW and expected to increase each year. She said, “By 2017, we can all say goodbye to brownouts and other hassles brought about by power outage, we were assured.” The truth is, the geothermal source was a hoax, and out of nowhere, the Occidental Mindoro Consolidated Power Corporation (OMCPC) immediately appeared like Aladdin’s genie and inked a Swiss Challenge Procurement Agreement with OMECO. And the rest of the EPI story is history, I mean, a fairy tale.
Sometime in March 2018, Rep. Josephine Sato and her allies led the Solar Para sa Bayan (SPSB) opening in Paluan. Critics of the project said that the SPSB exploited a captive market of electric consumers now nailed to the power company’s greed. Cong. Sato even said then that the project “should be replicated all across Mindoro.”
Rightly so, the Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (OMECO) has insisted that SPSB cease its operations because Paluan is part of the electric cooperative. No local politicians then stood on behalf of the EC and its MCOs, defended their electricity franchise privileges, and yielded their mandate to SPSB. OMECO did not receive any support from SPSB enablers on this problematic area. It was understandable because they are backing the solar project during its infantile stage of operation. The Municipality of Paluan, after a few years of partnership with SPSB now relinquished its power provision to OMECO. The SPSB abandoned the solar project afraid of totally losing their capital. The electric cooperative that they once bypassed redeemed them from chaos.
Sato and Villarosa are now on speaking terms after decades of hostility. Even their political allies in different political positions now merged as a group. Some known and longtime political allies of Villarosa now aligned themselves with the Sato group. Their former warring media propagandists and supporters already buried the hatchet, directing their criticisms over the radio and social media on their common "enemy": the incumbent governor Eduardo Gadiano. Gadiano recently advised OMECO to fast-track the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) to have a new power provider. The governor’s critics even pointed out that other politicians had already resolved his allegedly late proposals. The opposition rejected all his recommendations and action on the matter with all mean intentions. They belittled him saying that the governor does not fully understand the issue.
The governor failed to get from the Sangguniang Panlalawigan the resolution declaring the province under a state of emergency because of intermittent power interruptions. Take note, too, that a crack among the provincial board members on issuing such resolution as requested by the governor arose.
This coming May 9, whether we like it or not, the issue of brownout or power shortage in the province becomes the on-point issue. It will be immaterial for the voters the reasons and justifications for technicalities and legalities in the power industry sector. They will not forget the fact that after 32 years both of the camps of the two local political titans the problem is not resolved to date.
Politics and electricity are designed for relationships and not for isolation. Politicians and the electric consumer are socializers. They, too, are inseparable. And the agony is, the politicians’ circus is the electric consumers’ crisis.
They employ power-play politics amid power failures. Even those who deny it know that.
Local politicians have made promises for decades to end brownouts, but they ignore the reality that they had been part of the problem. Since time immemorial, they had already dipped their fingers in the issue with both beneficent and sinister motives. That is all in aid of (re-)election, one may think.
The bottom line of all: This issue of power, once again, could make or break the political careers of those gunning gubernatorial and congressional seats in 2022. Failure to employ political power that caused power failure is the main meat of the discourses leading to election day and beyond as long as brownout still exists, whatever its cause. Be it rotational power distribution, turbine washing, tripping, and other trouble like the recent mechanical disturbance in the power plant.
The bone of contention is the politicians’ three years of apparent lack of knowledge on the issue contrasted with three decades (or more) of vested interests, incredible business choices, and perhaps, negligence. Be it coming from the transmission, generation, or distribution side.
It will appear like this: Politicians versus their electoral rivals and overstaying political factions against the brownout fed-up voters and electric consumers. The electric consumers who are also voters are all discontented with this situation of electric power in the province.
When asked what are the prospects of this coming election, my friend, Atty. Lawrence Villamar has this to say: "It's important to note that this election may mark an end of an era and introduction of new players in local politics."
This word picture makes the elections on Monday and the local politics in Occidental Mindoro more fun and exciting.
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