EDITORIAL - Make the best of it

Any which way anyone looks at it, a power shortage of 260 megawatts is nothing short of a crippling blow, regardless of where that blow lands, which is on everyone. From the conduct of business to a person's personal convenience, the resulting two-hour brownouts are devastating.

But what makes the power crisis even more devastating is the fact that there appears to be nothing that anyone can do about it. A power shortage is not something you run to the corner convenience store to buy a remedy for.

There is only one solution to a power shortage. And that is to ensure an adequate power supply not just to compensate for the shortage but to create a surplus big enough to address the normal swings of supply and demand.

To do that, the government must take great strides toward attracting more investors willing to put up power generating plants in the country and to make sure that these investors are given ample protection from the usual critics.

Cebu almost dropped to its knees last Monday when, for the first time, power distributor Visayan Electric Company started implementing two-hour brownouts instead of just one hour when the shortage hit record levels.

Yet, instead of cursing the Devil for the unbearable heat, and the loss of business opportunities, Cebuanos can still take comfort in the fact that other areas are suffering even worse. In Cagayan de Oro, for example, the brownouts there last six hours at a time.

The Philippines has to be realistic enough to realize that current affordable technologies may necessitate the construction of power generating plants that are likely to attract controversies, especially from environmentalists.

Be that as it may, there are also technologies available that have made great strides in addressing health, safety and environmental concerns, such as clean coal power plants, and these are what the government should try to attract and bring in.

In a less than perfect world, some trade-offs have to be made if people have to survive. One cannot live the perfect world painted by environmentalists because there is no such world. What we have is what we have and we have to make the best of it.