CEBU CITY (PNA) – Sporadic power outages in Metro Cebu are affecting classes in public high schools with no generator sets even as these are exposing night high school students to risk, an education official here said.

“We’re definitely seeing this as a serious problem,” underlined Department of Education (DepEd) 7 Director Recaredo Borgonia.

For its part, the Department of Health (DoH) 7’s regional office said hospitals in Cebu are prepared for the power outages.

“Most of the hospitals here have generators on standby, especially for life-saving machines of patients,” said DoH 7 Director Susana Madarieta.

Rotation brownouts continued to hit Metro Cebu last Friday, which was the fifth day that the Visayas suffered a 200-megawatt (MW) shortfall in power supply since the 120-MW Leyte Geothermal Power Plant began undergoing preventive maintenance.

“Since 9 a.m. last Friday, most of our franchises were struck by the temporary rotational brownouts,” said Visayan Electric Company’s (VECO)’s Corporate Communications officer Ethel Natera.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) announced a 140-MW shortage in the morning peak, a 160-MW shortfall in the afternoon peak and 200-MW deficiency in the evening peak.

VECO, Metro Cebu's lone power distribution company, said its share of the shortage was at 65.7 MW in the morning peak, 73.2 ME in the afternoon peak and 100 MW in the evening peak.

The brownouts struck the areas for over an hour.

Borgonia said while operations in the DepEd regional office could continue since they have a generator set, public schools are not as fortunate.

“They do not have any generators. We need to ask for assistance from the local government units (LGUs),” said Borgonia.
He said some schools had to cancel computer classes due to the brownouts.

Borgonia pointed out that he is not only concerned over the cancellation of classes in night high schools but also for the safety of students enrolled in night high school.

He said that it would be helpful if affected schools would be informed of power outages ahead of schedule so they could adjust class schedules.

Meanwhile, the power and water supply situation in Lapu-Lapu City is also becoming critical.

The problem first came to light two years ago during a series of seminar-workshops attended by City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) engineers and other government agencies employees and members of the academe as well as the private and religious sectors in 2008.

“While it is now evident that these two major concerns (power and water supply) need immediate action, there are also a lot of factors contributing to the increasing gap between supply and demand that need to be addressed,” said CPDO acting chief Perla Amar in a letter to the City Council.

The conclusions reached by of the seminar-workshop was contained in the City’s approved Local Development Investment Plan.

As of 2008, the Mactan Electric Cooperative served 59,589 lines, excluding locators at the Mactan Economic Zone. Still, the city continues to experience power outages.

Water supply, on the other hand, has been fixed at 61,200 cubic meters a day from 2005 to 2010, while demand is expected to hit 72,000 cubic meters a day due to a population continuously rising.

“Power shortage continues to be critical and is expected to worsen. On the other hand, water service interruptions are expected,” Amar said, adding that there were 57 approved residential complexes in 2009, all requiring water supply.