Solar power system to be set up in Malapascua Is.

The Cebu provincial government has planned to install solar-power system in Malapascua Island, after the island fell into a blackout, from April 28 to last week, when its only generator conked out.

Governor Gwendolyn Garcia had raised this idea earlier when she saw the solar and windmill power system installed at the 4-hectare property of environmentalist lawyer Antonio Oposa in Sta. Fe, Bantayan Island.

Oposa named his property the “School of the Seas” and he told the governor then that his sources of energy could generate a total of 1,000 watts.

The island has been beset with problems on power source, after the barangay’s power generator that reportedly bogged and the only source of electricity there was reportedly sold by its barangay captain Rex Novabos.

Novabos earlier denied this report saying that it’s the Barangay Power Association who had been operating power supply in the island but he admitted that the association owed him at least P100,000.

Malapascua, a 136-hectare island, is home to more than 5,000 residents, and it has at least 20 resorts besides being deemed among the top ten diving spots in the country.

In another development, Capitol consultant on security matter Byron Garcia accused Novabos of failing to stop the proliferation of tricycles in the island, in violation of the rules of the Malapascua Island Eco-Tourism Development Plan Task Force. —Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/RAE