POWER LINES BACK. Linemen restore power lines damaged by Typhoon Odette on Dec. 16, 2021. RDC-7 chair Kenneth Cobonpue on Thursday (Dec. 23, 2021) said the power supply connection from Leyte to Cebu has been completed but the challenge lies in the restoration of damaged electric poles, lines, and equipment, in order to fully reenergize Cebu. (Photos courtesy of VECO and Dennies Siongco)
CEBU CITY – Now that reconnection of the power supply from Leyte has been completed, the Regional Development Council (RDC) in Central Visayas on Thursday said the challenge now is to restore damaged electric poles, lines, and equipment to fully energize Cebu.
RDC-7 chair and world-renowned furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue said the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines announced the complete reconnection of power supply from Tongonan, Leyte which are now transmitted to Cebu power distributors.
Cobonpue, who works with the Project Balik Buhay initiatives for post-calamity recovery, cited the "strong reinforcement teams from Meralco, Cagayan Electric Power, and Light Co., and Cotabato Light Co. and Subic Enerzone, saying that their presence here augmenting the exhausted teams from the Visayan Electric Co. has given hope to reenergize more areas in Cebu before Christmas Day.
He said some of the families of these linemen who come to help Cebu's power restoration are from different areas in the country that are also severely affected by Typhoon Odette.
As of Wednesday, the sixth day since Typhoon Odette devastated Cebu on Thursday last week, VECO announced in its social media post it has already restored 93 out of 544 power line segments, providing 25-megawatt of power daily to 4,911 sites in Cebu.
"Included in these are 14 out of 116 MCWD (Metro Cebu Water District) pumping stations and five out of 11 hospitals in Cebu. The goal to reenergize more and more Cebu households and companies in time for Christmas Day remains a priority, even as full reactivation of the entire island will reasonably take a bit more time," Cobonpue said in a Viber message sent to the Philippine News Agency.
Telco services improve
Cobonpue said that as the power supply in Cebu improves, the telecommunication companies are now working hard to expedite the resumption of their services.
He also reported that 20,000 liters of fuel arrived as "reinforcement fuel" provided by Meralco to the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT)-Smart Communications in Cebu to power their generator sets.
The help from Meralco came on top of other manpower and equipment support to help augment the PLDT technical teams in Cebu, many of whom were also victims of the typhoon.
"To reiterate, a big factor hindering full reactivation of telco services remains to be the lack of adequate power supply and the presence of fallen debris preventing the Telco technical teams from accessing some areas where their cell sites had been damaged," he said.
Water supply slowly back
With power to many of the deep wells now being supplied by VECO and by its own generator sets, MCWD has now achieved a 46 percent recovery rate.
The largest water district in Metro Cebu said it is now providing 110,000 cubic meters a day to thousands of households and companies across Cebu.
The current supply capacity is out of MCWD’s usual daily production of 240,000 cubic meters a day before the typhoon struck Cebu.
"The remarkable progress by MCWD continues to pick up the pace, and it is hoped that many more households and companies will be able to start receiving water from MCWD very soon," Cobonpue said.
Airport operations back
The RDC-7 chair said operations at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport have improved even as full power and internet connection have not yet been restored.
"Through the painstakingly hard work of so many dedicated men and women at the airport, both domestic and international flights are slowly starting to recover, despite the very difficult limitations. Hopefully, once more sufficient power supply and internet connection are fully restored, operations at the Mactan airport will gradually normalize," he said.
The MCIA, through the GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation, said the airport is now servicing 29 departing and 28 arriving domestic flights.
Only two departing and four arriving international flights were served as of Thursday, said the company's junior manager for corporate affairs Edilyth Maribojoc.
She clarified, however, that there will be no international arriving passengers disembarking from their flights on Thursday.
Only Cebuano passengers arriving via international flights are allowed entry starting at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, she said. (PNA)
