Power and Water Crisis in Summer 2011. Are We Ready?
He is known to be a business genius enjoying the admiration from the sector he has dominated for years. But San Miguel Corporation president Ramon Ang is now proving himself as a sage too.
Ang shared during an interview with Inquirer last week that the Philippines is set to experience a power and water shortage by the summer of 2011 – that is already next year folks; only months from now.
“A power crisis is coming…We have to start preparing for it now if we are to avert it. And in Luzon, our buffer is very think, if one plant goes offline in Luzon, there’s not enough spare capacity to take its place.”
And regarding the water shortage he is seeing some gloomy scenario on his crystal ball too,
“We may run out of water in the near future. All it takes is for one earthquake to damage Angat Dam.”
This gloomy scenario has already been actually foreseen by many experts and all it takes indeed, as what Ang has also said is to prepare the nation and the people – first to make all necessary actions in order not to let this nation suffer from water and power shortage and second, if it could not be averted anymore, prepare the nation and the people on how to adopt to such a difficult condition.
Of course, all these fearless predictions of the king pin are not without any business interests. For one, San Miguel Corporation has been shifting its business machinery for the past years from food and beverage to more lucrative business sectors like utilities, power and energy. Second, the company is most recently been entangled to a business issue of operating the Laiban Dam to supply water to Metro Manila, but was scrapped due to criticisms from the public. Presently, Angat Dam is the sole water provider for the whole of Metro Manila and has proven to be insufficient in capacity to be water source of all the millions of thirsty souls down the urban jungle.
Minus all the business interest Ramon Ang has to all these things he is sharing, getting ready and preparing for a crisis is an imperative for the government.
During the time of the highly-criticized and ridiculed Angelo Reyes, power shortage has already been predicted….wait, even way back during the time of Fidel Ramos.
I hope that this time around, this very serious issue should already be addressed head on and without any sugar coating.
Image from Castle Maine Independent.org
4 comments
Sigh Our country has so many issues, it could rival the combined emo-ness of 20 pre-pubescent kids.
The irony about this issue is that our country is surrounded by water (left – right – front – center – up – down).
.-= skysenshi´s last blog ..New Bombay at the Ayala Columns =-.
Indeed, if one has to think only of all the wide array of problems and issues of this country, I can’t imagine that person to still end up sane and fully alive.
Great point too! Very odd…our country is surrounded by vast bodies of water and we’ve got so many water sources but we are all experiencing this crisis. Well, there is nothing to blame here; the main culprit all boils down to management, to governance.
.-= elmot´s last blog ..Facebook Mobile Phone Out Soon =-.
Poor management of water resources is one of the biggest culprits. But there are other solutions available, like using desalination of sea water to augment water supplies.
The danger about this is that once business interests are given too much freedom in operating public utilities, you get very high rates and poor customer services.
This would be another tough test for PNoy.
.-= Jhay´s last blog ..RIM’s Tablet- The BlackBerry PlayBook – Research in Motion unveils their iPad competitor =-.
While reading this, I remember the pain of waiting for the fire truck till 3am and falling in long lines for hours just to have something to use for bath before the 8am work when I’m still in Manila.
Best Regards Pre!
.-= Jhong Medina´s last blog ..Web Design- CM Builders Official Website =-.
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