EDITORIAL - Enemy at the gates

Incoming mayor Michael Rama has every reason to be concerned by the power situation. With Cebu now suffering up to two-and-a-half-hour brownouts, the long-term prospects for stability in power indeed look bleak.

To be sure, the current power crisis stems from predictable shortages occurring quite unpredictably together — preventive maintenance shutdowns by several power generating units all over the Visayas surprisingly scheduled all at the same time, in the heart of an El Niño summer.

Other than that, and the resulting excruciating heat exacerbated by the brownouts, the power situations is, we have been made to believe, stable enough to see us through to 2013. After that, demand should have pretty much overtaken supply beyond simple rotating the teaspoons.

Seeing that far into the future, Rama thinks he knows what to do. But he only thinks he knows what to do. The truth is, there is nothing he can do even if he knows what to do. While his words may thunder to shake mountains, his actions are limited to kicking up the dust of dreams.

For his plan is to invite more power sector investors to put up more plants in Cebu while the reality is that he is just the mayor of Cebu City, a sprawling urban metropolis where power plants simply just cannot be.

When Rama talks of inviting power sector investors to put up power plants in Cebu, he is actually talking of inviting power sector investors to put up power plants in, say, Compostela, or maybe Minglanilla -- anywhere else in Cebu except Cebu City.

Not that it is impossible. On the contrary it is very possible. But Rama neither has the authority, nor the logic, to talk that way for as long as he is in Cebu City, unless of course he starts getting friendlier with old enemies waiting outside the gates of the city.

There is a big wide world outside Cebu City, a vast expanse teeming with possible sites for more power generating plants. But that big wide world outside Cebu City is almost synonymous with a name in big bold letters: Gwendolyn Garcia, governor of the Province of Cebu.

Sometime ago, Rama was asked if he could work with Garcia. After much hesitation, Rama said he could, if it is good for all Cebuanos, meaning those in Cebu City and outside it. But he has since taken it back, claiming to have been misquoted. Maybe he should revisit that episode.