CDO solon: Tower bombings peril polls

Rep. Rufus Rodriguez  INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON

NEARLY a quarter of all voters may have to cast their ballots in the dark or by candlelight, if the bombing of electric transmission towers in Mindanao is not stopped.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez went a step further, warning of a failure of elections in Mindanao as a result of the bombings that have toppled or damaged 18 transmission towers the past year, as well as right-of-way issues and other obstructions.

In Monday’s hearing of the House energy committee, Rodriguez said more bombings may lead to a power crisis and leave the May polls shrouded in darkness on the country’s second largest island.

There are nearly 13 million registered voters in the six regions of Mindanao, comprising 23 percent of the country’s voting population of 54.4 million.

“If we are unable to stop the bombings and repair the towers, we are not only talking about brownouts, the voting precincts and the entire environment will go dark and only the PCOS (precinct counting optical scan) machines will have a battery,” Rodriguez said.

“There is a real possibility of a Mindanao-wide failure of elections,” he told the panel chaired by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali.

Umali agreed the Mindanao situation was approaching crisis proportions.

“The executive [branch] should really look into this with utmost dispatch and perhaps call a national security meeting,” he said.

Who’s behind bombings?

Rodriguez said the latest attack occurred on Monday morning in Bubong, Lanao del Sur.

“This was the 18th attack since the bombings started on Jan. 13 (last year),” he said.

Talking to reporters after the hearing, Rodriguez could not say which groups were behind the attacks, but that it was up to the military and police to investigate.

Mindanao is under “yellow alert” in the aftermath of the bombings that felled power transmission towers and cut off the supply of electricity generated by the Agus 1 and 2 hydroelectric plants to the island grid.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has warned that if the situation persists and the single remaining line delivering power from the hydropower facility is compromised, the Mindanao grid may collapse altogether.

Besides the bombings, Rodriguez cited other problems, particularly uncooperative landowners, many of whom planted trees or built houses on the right of way. Some of them have barred entry to NGCP workers out to repair the electrical lines and towers.