WE’VE NOTICED that several areas within Davao City have suffered from power interruptions during dawn the past few days.
Of course, we read the company’s announcement about the outages. Though these are relatively short in duration, these are power interruptions just the same. What is happening? Why are power outages becoming prevalent? And these occur at dawn when the outages are less expected.
Now many consumers in the city are turning to social media to have their complaints known.
How long will these dawn outages continue? If these will be for several days, we could not blame people in the city if they tinker with the idea that the power firm might be losing its credibility to claim it has the solution to the problem of power consumers in Davao del Norte.
Why are we having problems with power supply from Mindanao-based generation companies?
It is a good thing that in the midst of the outages, the power distribution company in Davao City has announced that there will be a substantial rate reduction for this month’s billing. At least the inconvenience brought about by the dawn interruptions is compensated with a lower rate that people will pay in their next billing period.
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So, finally, the police already filed rape and homicide cases against the suspects in the rape-slay of architect Vlanche Marie Bragas in Calinan, Davao City, about two weeks ago. This, we learned from no less than the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) director Col. Alberto Lupaz in an interview he granted the media the other day.
According to Colonel Lupaz, there are three suspects in the meantime. Lupaz did not give the names of the suspects other than saying one is the tricycle driver, another is the guy who was already on-board the tricycle when flagged down by the victim, and the other is the one who, Lupaz believed, was waiting at the crossing of the road leading to the residence of the victim some 500 meters away from the main highway where Bragas boarded the tricycle. But are the suspects already apprehended, or are they still at large?
The question that needs to be asked now is whether or not the suspects were among the earlier claimed five “persons of interest” earlier announced by the particular investigating body created solely to probe into the architect’s rape-slay.
If not, then what does that make of the others who were allegedly abducted and/or arrested after they were suspected of involvement in the gruesome crime? What about the now missing person from Matina Pangi who helped one of the abduction victims after he escaped from his captors? The rescued victim later died while on the way to the hospital for treatment of his injuries at the hands of his abductors.
Will they be just among the collateral damage brought about by what could be an unreasonable haste to give immediate justice to the rape-slay victim as demanded by her family, co-professionals, and friends?
Sadly, people will have to wait for some time to get the needed and credible answers to the questions.
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Will the Davao City-Samal Island Bridge ever be constructed? If it will, as we are certain considering it’s a government development project, how long will it take to get started?
We are raising these questions because there were already several national administrations since the project was made brought to the public consciousness as early as 1975. Yet, it remained in paper and word of mouth for the longest time. The hope of its realization flickered when Davaoeno President Rodrigo Duterte assumed in 2016. Yes, there seemed to be so many activities done related to the project implementation during his administration.
The last one was the completion of another feasibility study conducted by a Hongkong-based consultancy firm, the approval of which led to the negotiation of a loan from China to finance the construction. However, the alignment or route of the bridge recommended and finally adopted by the government is now the subject of a court case filed by some aggrieved parties like the owners of a famous resort and a university-based environmentalists group.
Now it is with the Supreme Court. Of course, we know that some cases will take a much longer time for the high court to resolve. Meaning, the bridge project could be dormant again for a still unknown duration.
This delay could have been avoided had those against the bridge alignment and the government, through its appropriate agencies, come up with a ‘win-win” solution to break the impasse.
Hopefully, the project will be finally done under the present administration.
