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RonK's avatar

Hi friend, thanks for your insights and warnings. This is the first I have read anything by you. I too live in the Visayas, on Siquijor island. Like most places we are in a drought, which seems to happen in cycles, so water is an issue. It is ALWAYS an issue on a small island, but the politicians have no problem encouraging development to line their pockets. More development leads to excess strain on the electrical grid which is mismanaged at the expense of the citizens. This is not a new condition. It has been an issue since I moved here 12 years ago, but every administration ignores it to the point it cannot be denied. So, their solution is to blame it on El Nino. Read below a comment I posted in the Siquijor Forum, which pretty much sums it up. The one thing I believe is that solar is not available to 99% of the population of provincial citizens which are impoverished, and that on an island wide level it will be too expensive and subject to grift, corruption and mismanagement.

People still don't understand that solar is NOT going to save Siquijor in the near or distant future. The cost of planning, purchase and installation of solar panels will be a long term project, wasting time while Siquijor burns. Keep in mind there are two sides to solar energy: first, the generating and converting solar power to electricity and secondly the storage of the energy which requires expensive arrays of not-very-efficient batteries.

Recently, the governor has been forced to acknowledge that Siquijor has an electrical distribution problem. What a surprise!! Like it hasn't been evident for a decade or more. However, the governor, like all governors before him, refuses to take any responsibility for the problem. Instead, he claims that the problem is complex and requires a number of complex and time consuming solutions, so not to expect any relief in the near future.

Moreover, the government conveniently places much of the blame on El NINO,

as an act of GOD. EL NINO is an aberrant weather pattern that, from time to time, causes droughts = more electricity demand = overload of the generators = burnout of electrical distribution = frequent and continuous brownouts. El NINO, on the other hand, can also cause extended periods of rain storms, which do not create more electricity demand or overload of the generators or burnout of electrical distribution or more frequent and continuous brownouts. However, the "brownouts” frequency during the rainy season is not much diminished. The government, by blaming El NINO on an act of GOD, would suggest that the only solution is to pray for celestial intercession rather than government action. This is nothing more than a convenient distraction from the real cause and effective solution.

It seems rather odd to suggest that there is no easy fix or solution while, at the same time, approving ever more development schemes guaranteed to increase the electrical demand as well as the need for more tax funded infrastructure to support development. This policy completely ignores that Siquijor needs to appropriate the necessary funds to purchase a 3rd GENERATOR while upgrading the existing 2 generators that are long past their generating prime. This alone would create relief in the short term, while giving Siquijor breathing space to explore alternative energy solutions in the long term. So, the question remains, why is there no political will to acknowledge and move forward with this most obvious and easily available solution?

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