Failed

The Northern Davao Electric Cooperative (Nordeco) promised to install a submarine cable to stabilize power supply in the Samal Island by June 30, 2024. We are half a month past that self-imposed deadline and no cable exists.

Last May 23, Nordeco promised Sen. Raffy Tulfo, during a public hearing on the country’s energy situation, that Samal would have an improved power situation in a month’s time. The electric cooperative failed on that promise, too.

Nordeco, it seems, has been making promises simply to deflect criticism of its spotty performance. There have been calls in Congress to revoke the electric cooperative’s franchise for all its failures.

Nordeco’s failure to deliver reliable power supplies to its customers has been costly. Samal Mayor Al David Uy reported that his local government alone incurred P120 to P150 million in economic losses annually because of Nordeco’s sloppy service.

In addition, the mayor estimates the tourism sector is losing P50 million every year. Local businesses report annual losses of P30 million. Homes sustained P50 million in damaged appliances due to sustained blackouts. Public services and infrastructure incurred P10 million in losses. Agriculture and fisheries suffered an additional P20 million in losses. 

Because of Nordeco’s failures, the constituency it serves has become an economic black hole in an otherwise progressive part of the country. This particular electric cooperative has the most egregious record for failure even in a country where inefficient electric coops are the norm.

Rather than work on improving the quality of its service and on fulfilling its mandate to properly serve its customers, Nordeco has used its franchise as a shield and its political clout as a weapon to quell valid complaints. The coop filed complaints against local leaders, such as Davao del Norte Gov. Edwin Jubahib, for seeking relief for harried consumers.

Instead of making the hard investments that will improve the reliability of power supply for the communities it is supposed to serve, Nordeco has delivered only failed promises. It has single-handedly quashed the tourism potential of Samal Island even as the national government is considering investing in a costly bridge to improve access.

In the face of utter failure, Congress has had political difficulty revoking Nordeco’s franchise. The National Electrification Authority seems unwilling or unable to do anything about a failed electric coop, condemning the most promising part of an otherwise progressive region to darkness.

In many ways, the ugly situation Nordeco has created is a microcosm of how our problematic energy situation since the late 80s hollowed out our manufacturing, curtailed our economic growth and inflicted poverty on millions of Filipinos. 

Labs

Our poor rating in human capital is due to a number of staggeringly difficult institutional failures.

We have a learning deficit. We have a serious malnutrition problem leading to intolerably high incidence of stunting among young Filipinos. Large swathes of our population have no access to quality health care.

 These manifold problems limit the ability of our population to thrive in a competitive world. Each of these institutional problems require painstaking solutions and we will need some time to finally resolve them. Abundant focus and tenacity are needed.

During the 90s, the much-loved Juan Flavier, then secretary of health, launched an effective program to bring medical care to the remotest and poorest communities. He deployed medical students as “barefoot doctors” to serve communities unreached by available medical services. He urged young doctors to work in rural areas and disseminate know-how to the grassroots.

Flavier was so loved for his effort to disperse health care, he was tapped to run for the Senate. He hardly campaigned but won handily – although a Senate seat might not have been the best use of the man’s talents.

Recently, Flavier’s health care dispersal program “Doctors to the Barrios” has been resurrected, supported jointly by the Department of Health and the Department of Social Welfare and Development. First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos has been very active in encouraging the rebirth of “Doctors to the Barrios” as the “Lab for All” program.

Instead of just deploying health workers, “Lab for All” deploys mobile clinics to bridge the gap in health care access. These mobile clinics are equipped with diagnostic tools and medical staff and are deployed to the underserved communities.

A staggering number of Filipinos have no access to doctors, much less to modern diagnostic technologies. The deployment of mobile clinics sidesteps the shortages in medical facilities we endure. Modern mobile diagnostics will help poor families get quality medical assessments before they become serious illnesses.

There are now mobile clinics operating in Baguio City, Subic, Bacolod and Zamboanga. They offer the full range of services, from basic medical checkups to specialized diagnostics. Over the next few months and years, the number of mobile clinics deployed is expected to grow dramatically.

“Lab for All” involves some commendable out-of-the-box thinking. Since we do not have enough grassroots medical facilities to serve the needs of all, health care and diagnostics can be brought to the remotest communities through mobile labs.

The deployment of mobile diagnostic labs must be understood, however, as an interim solution. Eventually, we must rebuild our health care system from the bottom up, establishing community-based clinics with primary care facilities accessible to all. It will, of course, take many years and substantial public investment to build a world-class health care system for our people.

In the meantime, the mobile labs will bring basic health care to the grassroots.