Low Bat

I WISH I COULD BE less sweeping in my assessment that the government has done little in containing the energy problem to a minimum. So far these shortages has contaminated even the water supply of some areas, leaving those severely affected wondering how would they be able to keep up with this recession that causes desolation now that the economy is already experiencing a steady decline since the Garci years. Sweeping as it may seem, but the prospect of giving this government its third term would be so brazen that the nation would not only be forced to light a candle in the dark, but would also be induced to suffer its unlikely darkness.

Although it was only last year that Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes had already informed the consuming public that the country will experience shortages in energy; intimating, among other things, the aftermath of the global recession phenomenon, but little did the country know that the weight and the degree of his declaration would precariously endanger the social, economic and political circuit of the nation. The crippling effect of rationing the energy eventually puts a stamp on the validity of a dysfunctional system of government, that the predicates of it would be felt initially from a vast sea to shining sea of small-scale entrepreneurs to a conglomerate of multinational investors.

The dread, however, has not yet issued its tragic consequences, not since most of its discussions are confined mostly within the sphere of speculation. This May election, nevertheless, would prove to be a severe test of that claim. The Comelec being sure of its goal are lately been pushed to the limit, trying too hard to resuscitate enough breathing space away from any perceptions of failure. That if, and when, the Department of Energy failed to close its ranks, and to close it fast, any political fears of sabotage and abuse of power will shamelessly take over, and then the outcome of that election would put the whole country in a standstill, setting the stage for a third act for the La Presidenta.

The transference of these shortages, not to mention, is so great that by now a large chunk of those who line up in the registration, and hoping to be counted, are slowly losing its own energy to question, let alone combat, those responsible for the mismanagement of our power supplies. Shortages has a way of sucking out the marrow of every society to act upon every action and issue an approximate reaction afterwards. That from the time Reyes declared that the country will have its own rendition of the Dark Ages up to the reconstruction period of rotating its power lines, there is still that shortage of resounding complaints, that it hasn’t reached a consolidated effort from the consumers for the same reason that the country, in effect, is undergoing an equally resounding countrywide development funk of power supplies.

To say that the energy problem needs an emergency power from the President is already an admission of guilt, that all options and offering had been tried and that the possibility of an alternative would be too bloody within the consecration of its office. To say that the energy problem needs an emergency power from the President is a stark confession of bewilderment, that the same office mandated to oversee and sanction every energy concerns are still questioning among themselves, trying to save this nation from disappearing in that utter darkness. To say that the energy problem needs an emergency power from the President is choosing directly the Devil over the deep blue sea, that it makes no sweat to pledge its alliance to a foreshadowing figure than to go through the exploration of trying to survive the inundation of power failures by employing certain contingencies within the fortitude of its own mandating power.

Of course, the logical representation would be that this problem is inevitable: that it is bound to happen at this very moment when we are in the process of testing the bounds of what little reality remains in that automated polls, that it is bound to happen at this very hour when the seeds of partisanship can actually influence the methodology of an election by being narrow and critical to a candidate, that it is bound to happen at this very minute when our present political structure is in a reconciliatory mode from Yasay embracing again Erap, Satur shaking hands with Bongbong and the de Venecia’s welcoming again their former boss. As such the likes of it will never be the same again after only three months from now.

Maybe its about time we reconsider using those nuclear power plants to minimize somehow the darkening of the whole dispensation especially in Mindanao . Maybe let us set aside, for a time, the oftentimes debatable paranoia of nuclear threats in exchange for a better way of life, exacerbated by the presence of that energy. Maybe its about time we should (Reyes included) pull all the stops by installing again these enclosed nuclear power plants not as a potentially harmful mechanism, but as a dynamic provider of alternative energy. The threats, however, circulating around these nukes (of course with all due respect to its regulations) are a no-brainer, since it can be contained internally without resorting to politics and bad publicity, but when threats of power shortages occur in a recurring fashion, chances are investments will go down, inflation rates will go down deeper and insurrections will be let loose in no time with so much force and energy.

To label the Department of Energy, along with its network of offices, improvident, would be quite an understatement given the appropriate billing. But why couldn’t this wretched energy be rationed somewhere else? There must be nothing in the least extraordinary about these rotating blackouts, it merely intensifies the negativity surrounding the purported failure of the May polls.

Even local dailies has to contend itself with fighting against its own energy consumption, like there is a covert attempt of silencing the news, and it seemed like the silencing has done a pretty good job of maintaining the status quo of conditioning the confused public what it would be like come election time.

Although I wouldn’t recommend the resignation of the Energy Secretary because that would digress us way below the demarcation line of containing the problem, I only want him to consolidate whatever it is for him to consolidate; to resolve the problem, by any means necessary, not just by attending a stakeholders meeting in the Visayas where energy sources are still very much at bay, while leaving almost all of Mindanao in manic depression of wholesale shortages.

Besides, would it be possible for him to sanction a postponement of rationing the energy for at least three months just to give way for the elections and reactivate it after the polls? Would it be a tall order for him to reopen closed nuclear power plants to somehow generate a sufficient power supply in lieu of the automated election, and close these same plants only after the polls if he sees a threat in it other than its election use? Would it be too hard for him to swallow the bitter pill of blame now that his office is intimating an emergency power from you-know-who to make it look more like an accident, and not as a result of ineptitude and incompetence?

These are the kind of blackouts that eventually lowers the batteries of those who still have faith in our fluctuating resources, in our ability to shine bright amid intense scarcity and our diminishing confidence, and energies as well, to the powers that be.