Estrada to Napocor: No more blackouts

President Estrada ordered the state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) yesterday to improve its facilities in Mindanao to prevent a recurrence of the blackout that swept the island Monday.

Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora said the three-hour power outage - which left 16 million people literally in the dark - was due to a technical problem and not sabotage.

Zamora said when the President learned of the blackout, he immediately called up the Napocor and warned the agency that the blackout should not happen again.

"The President wants a faster reaction time. Yesterday, power was restored after two hours. The President wants that cut to at least half, maybe an hour or less," Zamora said.

Napocor said the blackout was caused by tripping of the line connecting Abaga substation and Agus 2 hydroelectric plant in the towns of Baloi and Sagularan in Lanao del Norte.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, chief of the Armed Forces' Southern Command based in Zamboanga City, said the best way to secure vital installations in Mindanao, particularly electric facilities, is for the military to regain full control of areas held by the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Villanueva also ruled out sabotage as the cause of the Mindanao-wide power outage.

In the same interview, Villanueva said the MILF was able to strengthen its forces even as peace talks with the government were going on.

He said the MILF was even able to put up a shadow government in certain towns in Lanao del Norte, particularly those surrounding its major Camp Bilal such as Munai, Tanka, Tambo, Matungao and Baloi.

"You can find that some of these towns have already been deserted by their local government officials and that they have already been under the control of the MILF," Villanueva said. --