The coming of an undersecretary of the Department of Energy in Bohol portends something we can’t simply turn off. Or unplug.
One side of the mask is the energy department assuring us there is enough power, the other side however tells us otherwise.
What this simply tells us is: We have enough supply of something we don’t.
And if you are as confused as we are, damn if we know how to handle the truth: anytime soon, some environmentalists would have to be worditarians, yes, eat their words and be amnesiac about their otherwise untenable position then.
There is apparently a looming energy crisis, but the government is not admitting it. Or it is, but does not know how to say it.
A few years back, Ayala power development started prospecting, and in fact was on the initial steps of wiring a plan for P1.3 billion 8 megawatt Cantakoy hydropower development.
Unluckily, it was ill timed; at an election season where water drop in a turbulent ocean can produce the ripples enough to sink a plan.
Of all reasons oppositors: who are self-confessed staunch environmentalists, can think, it was for a hydropower plant’s disastrous environmental impacts.
Zoom in on a bulldozer opening a road access, blow it up like its leveling a mountain, send in a probe team who looks at upturned stone and displaced ants rather than the plan, and as you notice, the project was water-under the bridge.
The persecution naturally sends off the image-conscious investor pfffft.
Now, the same probe team now wants a land-based power plant in Bohol.
Of course, they can forget about their stance then, in fact they have eaten their environmental concern like they have forgotten that the impacts of the multi-billion airport or the multi-room resorts in Panglao are impossible to imagine.
Now the same issue haunts them back: a land based power source in Bohol and seemingly, if it’s not Cantakoy, its again a dam that will also act as a generator of 10 MW of power.
The proponents of these power generation sources are basically the same. But the season isn’t.
Damn if you do, Damn if you don’t.