Now I am convinced that as far as the people of Occidental Mindoro is concerned, like the rest of the Filipinos, Raffy Tulfo is greatly considered as the fix all problem solver, the messiah, if not the mediatrix from above. This is based on the reaction I got from his viewers yesterday featuring the incessant power interruptions that we experienced lately. Incidentally, this part of Tamarawlandia was once labelled as the “Blackout Capital of the Philippines” owing to power outages happening in all of its mainland towns for more than 3 decades now.
Last Tuesday, a netizen from Rizal town called the attention of the anchor of the public affairs program “Wanted sa Radyo”, a popular radio-television show and YouTube channel. Angel Mendoza, a member of the LGBTQ community bravely faced the camera and discussed the currently-prevailing rotational brownout schedule in the province and brought it to the attention of one of the famous Tulfo Brothers, Raffy Tulfo or “Idol Raffy” to his millions of diehard followers. Me, not included.
I salute Angel Mendoza for his/her bravery and courage, first and foremost. Mendoza’s sentiment is shared by the people of Occidental Mindoro that the power shortage problem has not only affected the daily lives of the electric consumers, but has also curbed our economic activity and thereby impairing our economic growth.
The following day, and that was Wednesday (May 5), the same complaint from Mendoza was again given airtime by their Idol Raffy. I will not mention who are his guests that day for what they have told Tulfo is the same thing that they were telling us time and again. But admittedly, I was entertained by the show and I am 110% sure that after all what they have discussed in that episodes, we, the consumers, citizens and netizens, still groping inside a dark tunnel and at the mercy of our electricity providers who think nothing but their own businesses and capital. Including the electric cooperative which had been kowtowing to business interests of influential people from politics and business both from our locality and elsewhere, then and now. Methinks.
OMECO from the start, since it entered into an onerous, one-sided contract with Island Power Corporation (IPC) up to the legality and technically confusing predicament how the much trumpeted Emerging Power, Inc. (EPI), the developer of the Montelago geothermal project, suddenly "transformed" as Occidental Mindoro Consolidated Power Corporation (OMCPC) and its plants are like those of IPC powered by bunker fuel.
Instead of EPI, how did OMCPC came into the picture? At the start, there was an existing Power Supply Agreement (PSA) between OMECO and EPI. The former was apparently hoodwinked by the latter as OMECO’s Meliton Pasol, as its Board President and Rodolfo Plopinio as its Director, signed the PSA with EPI. Lo and behold, later EPI, the supposed geothermal power company, assigned its PSA to OMCPC through Deed of Assignment on September 9, 2015. Some incumbent politicians then sit with EPI top honchos in various forum and occasions in the past. When the PSA between OMECO and EPI was signed last February 28, 2014 at Sikatuna Beach Hotel in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, the lawmaker who was in interviewed by Raffy Tulfo last Wednesday was also there vouching for the worth of the EPI. Many attendees said that with EPI, our brownout days will finally be over. Just like how another local politician operated the IPC with its 25-year exclusive contract which was also signed by OMECO for more or less 3 decades now, without thinking its atrocious consequence in the coming years.
It was such a blunder on the side of OMECO when it informed the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in writing that it had no objection to the assigned PSA from EPI to OMCPC. Ergo, the PSA is now between OMCPC and OMECO. I just do not know if there is an on-going legal or judicial determination on the issue but that is now the very meat of contention. The then overhyped EPI geothermal project which was trumpeted in 2014 as the sole supplier of geothermal energy in the whole island of Mindoro went pfft like the bubbles in their nostrils.
We live in the same ambiguous tunnel. We are still riding on the same banana (boat) in the same sea of uncertainty, so to speak.
Is the Raffy Tulfo show really an alternative mechanism for seeking justice? I doubt it. We still have the courts of law and pertinent quasi-judicial bodies to do that. For me, there are entertainment shows camouflaged as public service. Truly, there is a very thin line between public service and rating, and in case of social media, likes, followings or views and subscribers. The more subscribes, the more bucks one can rake out of the anguish of the people.
Do we really need only Raffy Tulfo to get out of this hellish energy crisis for decades and the current brownouts? Again, my answer is in the negative. The magnitude and extent of this decades-long debacle of power crises could not be capsulized in an entire episode, if not season of a public service program or YouTube podcast or streaming. Brace for more rotational brownouts every summer season of the year specially now in the midst of the increasing COVID-19 cases in the province.
The struggle we must wage against this unjust act of those in the local power industry cannot be a proxy struggle. Hopefully, our action and protest against brownouts and power crises in the province should not end at Tulfo’s show. Letting our quest for justice only remain in the show, we are all Tulfooled just the same. We should do more than than (social) media projection. There are thousand ways of battling this.
Citizens and netizens must rally beyond that. How? That is the question we should address in unison. Certainly it could be through the courts or elsewhere but must surely be within the bounds of law by way of active and non-violent means. I have been calling for this since 2008 if my memory serves me right.
Be like Angel Mendoza, Occidental Mindoro’s version of Greta Thunberg. Shout bravely about our sorry state in whichever venue.
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anyare na sa omeco expose na yan? wala din
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