Local and national officials normally caution citizens against the profligate use of Christmas light. Energy conservation amid the ongoing oil price hike has become a “mantra.”
Thus, what was surprising was that in Iloilo City there arose a collective howl and denunciation of the prolonged blackout that gripped a wide portion of the city on Christmas Day. That dampened the Christmas spirit and affected business.
In Bacolod, meanwhile, there were intermittent power outages in some areas. But these did not last long enough to dampen the Christmas celebrations of the city folk.
Ilonggos coined a new term – Black Christmas – to describe the unannounced power interruption that plunged the capital city of Western Visayas into “black,” so to speak.
City dads immediately raised a collective howl and denounced the power firm’s lack of social responsibility. And that led the Sangguniang Panglungsod to call for a House investigation into the frequent and seemingly destructive power interruptions that have gripped the city for sometime.
An irate Councilor Eldrid Antiquera authored a resolution calling on Rep. Raul Gonzalez Jr. to investigate the series of power interruptions. The Panay Electric Company holds a legislative franchise.
And what riled city residents was that the power outage was unannounced and took people by surprise.
That created shambles of Christmas family reunions and parties. Most of these were interrupted and some virtually cancelled.
Randy Pastolero, speaking over radio station dyOK, blamed the problem on the transmission of power with the National Power Corp. PECO, he explained, utilizes Panay lines for energy transmission.
Thus, when Napocor incurs interruptions from the grid, PECO suffers. So with its consumers.
The hullabaloo refused to die down even when power was restored after several hours.
But what got the goat of Ilonggo consumers was PECO’s earlier announcement that it would hold a hearing on its request to raise the cost of power, which even Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas claimed he had not heard of.
The SP unanimously passed the resolution, which was submitted to Iloilo Rep. Gonzalez.
Peña bucks ceding son to Plinky
In Negros Occidental, meanwhile, controversial Pulupandan Mayor Magdaleno Peña told Negrense mediamen that he would not give up custody of his three-year-old son to his mother, Marie Roxanne (Plinky Recto), even by New Year’s Eve.
Peña, who maintained that he is out of the country with his son, claimed that he had been furnished information by the intelligence community that the New People’s Army intends to kidnap his three-year-old son.
Thus, he said, he has entrusted his lawyer to ask the Supreme Court to allow him time not to comply with its order giving custody of his son to Recto, a movie actress and TV talkshow host.
Recto’s counsel, Evelyn Ursua, said there are no records with the Bureau of Immigration that Peña and his son had gone out of the Philippines.
The turnover of his son to Plinky, Peña said, would cause a real and imminent danger to the life and safety of the boy.
The kidnap plot was reportedly aimed to stop him from pushing through with the criminal cases Peña had filed against top-ranking communist leaders in connection with the pre-election ambush of Peña and his bodyguards.
Ursua countered that Peña is actually the threat to the safety of the boy because of his colorful lifestyle. She stressed that the SC has ruled that the child should be with his mother, Ursua countered.
Well, as I’ve said, that domestic spat interrupted the Christmas celebration focus of many Negrenses who kept watching the latest development in the family melee.
ADDENDUM. A “blast” reportedly damaged the window of the editing room of the ABS-CBN Bacolod station along 25th street. This happened at around 10:35 p.m. last Dec. 26. Jessie Bulaclac, the ABS-CBN’s security guard, told police investigators that he heard a gunshot purportedly fired by one of two men aboard a motorcycle seconds before the blast. Police, however, failed to find any empty shells in the area as of press time.