Clean coal technology opens in Cebu!

Finally, the first 72-MW unit of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) dubbed the Cleanergy plant in Sangi, Toledo City which is a consortium of Aboitiz Power (AP), MetroBank and Formosa Power was inaugurated by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) yesterday morning. This power plant is so important for Cebu, as it is hoped that it would ease those pesky blackouts that we’ve been having lately. A few months later, two other 72-MW units will be operational for this plant.

This power plant brings the “clean coal” technology to the island of Cebu. A couple of years ago, the Cebu media flew to Taipei, Taiwan to see Formosa Power’s clean coal technology up-close. Their power plant was situated right inside an economic zone that produces semiconductors, while another clean coal plant sits right beside a shopping mall. There was no black smoke or soot emitting from the smokestacks. It is truly a new kind of technology that fixed an old one that wasn’t good for the environment.

Another interesting power plant that we saw in Taipei was the one that turned garbage into power. The Philippine government should study this technology because most of our urban centers produce tons and tons of garbage that our landfills are overflowing. They call this the waste-to-energy technology. Surely we don’t have to reinvent the wheel and adopt this technology, which is unique, but above all, it works!

While we are partially solving the power problems in Cebu and the rest of the Visayas, it is unfortunate that Mindanao is still suffering from power shortages. However, help is on the way as Aboitiz Power, through its subsidiary Therma Marine Inc. (TMI), just assumed ownership of PB 117, a 100-MW power barge moored in Nasipit, Agusan del Norte. This bunker fuel-fired power barge is one of the two power barges acquired by Aboitiz Power through the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) worth $30 million. While this may not yet solve Mindanao’s power problem, at least it is a good start.

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Last Thursday, The Philippine STAR reported that 90 percent of those who take the civil service exams fail. How sad! This is symptomatic of the ill-fated educational system that has deteriorated from the time of the EDSA Revolution when we used to be among the best in Asia and now we have become Asia’s laggard. Perhaps the bigger problem we face is that we always find someone to blame for our problems, rather than solve them head-on.

We can blame all the Presidents from Ferdinand Marcos to Tita Cory and all the way to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But rather than blame them, perhaps it is time for Filipinos to look at themselves in the mirror and say to themselves that we are much to blame for the problems that we have by voting the wrong political leaders to lead our nation. As a friend of mine told me, Filipinos are a very choosy lot even when they choose their toilet paper. Yet in choosing our President, we end up with the lousy ones, who are good in making promises they won’t keep anyway!

Talking about solving our problems ourselves, one problem that has always plagued the nation is the decades-old communist insurgency, which worsened during the Cory regime when Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chairman Jose Ma. Sison was released with no deals that would have brought an end to the insurgency. This is why 24 years after the EDSA Revolt, we still have the New People’s Army (NPA) pillaging our villages and countryside.

In Cebu, we had had problems with the insurgency for many years. But we didn’t sit around waiting for the problem to run away… a few years ago, Gov. Gwen F. Garcia declared all-out war against the communist insurgency and what allowed it to breed in our countryside. Back then, the National Democratic Front (NDF) warned the governor that rivers of blood would spill in Cebu because of her declaration.

But the NDF’s scare tactics didn’t scare Cebu’s first woman governor, and this week, Gov. Garcia proudly declared that the province of Cebu was finally “rebel-free!” and not a drop of blood spilled! The last rebel-initiated incident happened a couple of years ago when some NPA rebels were caught in Talisay City for extortion activities. Indeed, from full-blown terrorists, they have become nothing but vagabonds who extort money from the people!

The governor made this declaration during the turnover ceremonies for the internal security operations (ISO) in the province to the Cebu Provincial Peace and Order Council. Indeed, peace has a lot of dividends and it is even more visible on the island of Bohol, which is also very much rebel-free, and tourists are flocking there in droves.

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