Mayor Beng Climaco was confident the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco) under Crown/Desco management could very soon find solutions to the power outages and fluctuations that the city of Zamboanga has been experiencing since the daily rotational blackout was lifted shortly before the May 13 midterm elections.

“Let us pray for a very doable solution (to the powers problems) which will redound to the benefit of the people,” Climaco said at the press briefing yesterday before she met with officials of Crown/Desco and the Western Mindanao Power Corporation (WMPC).

While negotiations are ongoing between both power provider companies for stable power supply in the city, the chief executive was hopeful the city government’s intervention could help solve the issues confronting the two companies.

In the meeting with the mayor and City Administrator Apple Go were WMPC Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Office Tirso Santillan, Vice President Edgar Sevilles, Manager Jose Marie Torrejon, Consultant Engr. Ruben Conti, Jun Contreras of Alsons Power Corp., Atty. Lorenz Reyes, lead counsel of Crown/Desco and Engr. Mel Tiu, among other officials.

In the meantime, Atty. Reyes assured the public that Crown/Desco’s commitment to provide Zamboanga City with a reliable and efficient power supply is a work in progress. These include the rehabilitation of what he termed as Jurassic power distribution lines, substations and transformers.
He said experts from Manila are working on the installation of new power distribution lines and transformers starting from Recodo area down to the city proper.

Another work being done is changing defective meters with new ones. “It is a work in progress. Everyday our technicians, our engineers are all around the city changing meters and disconnection activities,” Reyes said.

Likewise, the new Zamcelco management is also computerizing its financial and logistics systems.

On outages and voltage fluctuations, Engr. Tiu explained these are the results of power supply imbalance, a technical term referring to power loss when the system is shut down without proper coordination with the rest connected to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

Thus, he said a meeting was conducted with NGCP in Iligan last week to understand the technical operation of the entire systems attached to the grid. He said another meeting on the matter has been set in the coming days.-(Vic Larato) (photos: Kathy Wee Sit)