They still don’t get it! Haste makes waste!

I’ve been writing about our proposed shift from a presidential/unitary system of government to a federal/parliamentary form for years now, but while that dream is getting closer, it shouldn’t mean that we should rush things. This is why we’re still against a constituent assembly (con-ass) because of that old adage "haste makes waste!" Well, in very obvious haste, Speaker Jose de Venecia has called for a nationwide consultation on Charter changes, which will be conducted by the governors, mayors and barangay captains all in a month’s time. Wow! In just one month?

Wait! Didn’t we just read an SWS survey which showed that 70 percent of Filipinos don’t know what Cha-cha is all about? If you ask me it would be a total disaster if we get the wrong information on this issue because JDV is in a damn hurry! If I may suggest, what JDV should do is prepare a budget for an information campaign citing the difference between the present presidential system and the proposed federal/parliamentary system. Only after he has done his educational campaign on what future political system we should chose should JDV ask the governors, mayors and barangay captains to get the consensus of the Filipino people on what they think of Cha-cha. Haste makes waste!

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Last Saturday, a huge crowd attended the public hearing at the Naga Sports Complex to show their support for the construction of two 100-megawatt coal-fired power plants that Salcon Power and Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) would be building in Naga, some 30 kilometers south of Cebu City. The crowd was unexpectedly huge, some 3,000-strong, because of the noise made by left-leaning protesters belonging to the Naganhong Parokyano Alang sa Kaluwasan sa Banay (Nagpakabana) and the Cebu Alliance for Renewable Energy (CARE), who have taken the cudgels for the Naga residents to protest or prevent the construction of the coal-fired power plants because of the pollution they would bring.

Because there were so many pro Naga residents at the meeting and because the very few protesters (most of whom do not live in Naga) could no longer go inside the sports complex, Mayor Ferdinand Chiong was accused of making "hakot" his supporters to fill up the venue. But in truth, the people of Naga know too well what’s good for their community... that a huge P15-billion investment like that is something that the other towns could only envy because it would bring jobs and more jobs to their town.

Of course, we’re not turning our backs on the problem of pollution that a coal-fired power plant could bring. But then the protesters were using the old Naga thermal plant as their example of a polluting power plant, a plant that has been in Cebu for the past 30 years.

But we got reports that there’s a coal-fired power plant right in the middle of Seoul, South Korea and no one’s complaining that it is causing pollution and endangering the people living nearby. We learned that this coal-fired plant uses electrostatic scrubbers that clean up the pollutants from the power plant. I reckon that if Salcon Power and Kepco use the same technology here, we have nothing to worry about.

Maybe, we should to change the questions on this issue. Rather than ask whether we should allow a coal-fired power plant to operate, we should ask whether the new plant that Salcon Power is putting up would have the necessary electrostatic scrubbers as part of their investment for this plant. An equally important question is how much does it cost to maintain these anti-pollution devices so we can be sure that the new power plant would never be operated without these safety devices.

As to that public hearing, it was the first time that we’ve heard that a town’s residents went out of their way to fight those "anti-anything" protesters who, in the name of saving the environment, would go far and wide just to air their protests. Yet these self-proclaimed environmentalists didn’t make a peep when smoke-emitting tricycles pollute the towns of this country because of the confounded two-stroke engine. Clearly, these self-proclaimed environmentalists only care about pollution when their funding sources give them a bigger amount to keep up their protests. No one gives a hoot about or funding against the pollution done by tricycles anyway... but that’s the same kind of pollution, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, we should take stock of what other sources of energy are available to us. Truth to tell, our power woes would have disappeared if only we allowed the Bataan nuclear power plant to operate. But thanks to those left-leaning protesters who took the side of the opposition against the Marcoses when they got booted out of Malacañang, we also booted out our chances to have a nuclear power plant. Unfortunately for the Filipino people, including all future generations, we would still be paying for that stupid mistake long before all the people of my generation would have gone to the great beyond. Here we are paying millions of pesos a day for a power plant that doesn’t produce energy to light even a single bulb.

So what options do we have left? There’s geothermal energy which we are using to the max, then we can still get those diesel-powered power plants which, in this day and age of record-breaking world prices of crude oil, are fast becoming a very expensive proposition. In the end, we’ve run out of options and what’s left is a coal-fired power plant. At this point, all we need to do is ensure that the anti-pollution devices would be part and parcel of this deal, and even better if the power company can set up a medical facility exclusively for respiratory cases so that if anyone needs medical attention, it should be at the cost of the power producer, not the residents of Naga.

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I’m announcing the arrival of Kirsten "Keena" Erica Avila Tequillo, my second grandchild and my first granddaughter. She’s the first daughter of my son-in-law, Atty. Jennoh Tequillo, and my eldest daughter, Dr. Fara Avila Tequillo. All 6.9 pounds, she was born on Aug. 9 at 5:40 a.m. at the Cebu Doctor’s University Hospital in Cebu City. Thank God for the blessing of family!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.