I DO HOPE you don’t have visions of this delightful and delectable classic Italian dish i.e. puttanesca or marinara.
I’m sorry to disappoint you. We’re not talking about it but something not delightful or delectable but just happen to resemble it – sagging and tangled electric wires, television cables and communication lines commonly known in “I Am Iloilo City” as “spaghetti wires”.
Last year I wrote about the project of the Iloilo City Government, particularly Mayor Geronimo’s, to clear the main streets and public plazas of these unsightly and dangerous “spaghetti wires”.
For decades the natives of “I Am Iloilo City” accepted as fact of life this unsightly visual pollution (not to mention very dangerous and highly volatile as they could burst into flames the moment an exposed wire or cable comes to contact with each other) to the point that nobody ever thought these could actually be removed.
Well, that is until a group came up with a very good plan.
The Public Utilities Group of Iloilo – made up of major players of public utilities, i.e. Smart and Globe Communications, PLDT, Sky Cable, and MORE Power – together with the city government, met to discuss these “spaghetti wires” and what should be done about them.
Naturally after sometime we wanted to know what happened after that meeting. Did something happen or it was just for “press release” purposes.
Moi did some legwork and research and this is what I gathered:
1. Most if not all of the unsightly and dangerous “spaghetti wires” along Calle Real were already removed.
2. Likewise for the public plazas which were also spruced up for the holidays.
3. Lately, they have started clearing the bike lanes and the Esplanade, particularly the ones in Muelle Loney, not only of “spaghetti wires” but electrical poles as well.
This we can say, so far so good.
And we segue to the illegal jumpers and illegal power resellers. We have been monitoring the campaign against illegal power connections and to date, from these 30,000 “jumpers” more than 14,000 have already been apprehended, 900-plus kilometers of jumper cables seized, and more than 70 individuals have been charged with violation of the Anti-Pilferage of Electricity Act and Theft of Electric Transmission Lines / Materials Act of 1994 (Republic Act 7832)which is a criminal offense.
For decades we have been exploited by unscrupulous individuals who made money at our expense and by erstwhile power provider Panay Electric Co. (PECO) that simply plowed back to consumers the losses entailed by large-scale power thieves and illegal power resellers.
These illegal electrical connections a.k.a. “jumpers” overload power lines, resulting into system overload causing power interruptions or line explosions and fires.
Aside from running after these illegal jumpers and resellers particularly in Molo and Mandurriao districts were the bulk of these ilegalistas are holding court, what has been done to sort out this problem which is the main cause of power interruptions?
Again, Moi went for some legwork and a bit of research. Automatic Circuit Reclosers (ACRs) are being installed. These are a type of switchgears used in overhead electricity distribution networks to detect and interrupt momentary faults.
These ACRs costing about P2 million per unit are designed to reduce power interruption caused by transient faults such lighting strikes, surges or foreign objects i.e. birds , geckos, snakes and deliberately thrown objects coming to contact with exposed distribution lines.
In Molo and Mandurriao where majority of these illegal connections are located, there are outages deliberately caused by ilegalistas to have a window of opportunity to safely connect their illegal wire taps. The reclosers automatically restore power to the affected area, effectively shutting the door on these power thieves.
With that, we hope these brownouts will be greatly minimized if not totally eliminated./PN
