ARE POWER COMPANIES IGNORING THE LAWS?

 

ARE POWER COMPANIES IGNORING THE LAWS?

To my surprise, I received a formal reply from the DOE in response to my column about requiring power companies to issue advanced notices to households that have very sick persons or persons with disabilities (PWDs) in case of planned power interruptions, so that they could make the necessary preparations. I am surprised not because I feel important, but because it is not very common for government agencies to take the trouble of formally responding to ordinary citizens.

To cut a long story short, the DOE said that there is no need to issue new orders, because the power companies are already required by existing rules and regulations to do precisely that, to inform very sick persons or PWDs in advance, in case of planned power interruptions. There is therefore no question about whether or not there are existing rules and regulations. There is however a question of whether or not the power companies are actually doing it.

The DOE said that although the power companies are required to provide advanced notices to very sick persons or PWDs in their homes, they are not required to notify the hospitals. That appears to have been forgotten by whoever issued those rules and regulations. The good news is, some power companies are informing the hospitals on their own. What can we do to fully implement these rules and regulations? Perhaps we can require all the power companies to have mandatory compliance officers? IKE SENERES/09088877282/03-18-2024

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOW IS THE CRIME RATE COMPUTED IN THE PHILIPPINES?

HOW IS THE CRIME RATE COMPUTED IN THE PHILIPPINES? When we talk about the crime rate in the Philippines, we often assume that the figures we see are accurate reflections of reality. But have we ever paused to ask—how exactly is the crime rate computed? Where does this data come from, and how reliable is it? The computation of the crime rate in the Philippines is officially handled by the Philippine National Police (PNP). The formula itself is straightforward: Crime Rate = (Total Reported Crimes / Total Population) x 100,000 This simple equation gives us the number of crimes per 100,000 people, allowing for fair comparison across regions and time periods. However, the reality behind these numbers is more complex than it appears. Data from the Ground The foundation of our national crime rate is empirical data collected at the grassroots level—from individual police stations scattered across the country. Every reported crime is logged in local police blotters, forming the buil...
Read more

GREY AREAS IN GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS

GREY AREAS IN GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS Dear Mr. President: May I ask who is going to be the arbiter or referee whenever there are overlaps in functions between two or more government agencies? I imagine that there would be no problem if these agencies would just cooperate and collaborate with each other, but what if they are unable to settle their differences and they would just end up throwing blame at each other or finger pointing at each other? Allow me to cite some examples. Who is supposed to take the lead in waste to energy projects? Is it supposed to be the DENR that is supposed to handle waste? Or is it supposed to be the DOE that is supposed to handle energy generation? Or is it supposed to be the DILG since it is the one that could direct or influence the waste to energy projects of LGUs? Who is supposed to take the lead in producing and promoting the use of biofuels? Is it supposed to be the DA, since the production of biofuels is supposed to be all about planting biofuel ...
Read more

LOCALIZED FREE AMBULANCE SERVICES

LOCALIZED FREE AMBULANCE SERVICES As it is supposed to be, anyone in the Philippines should be able to dial 911, and a telephone operator should be able to dispatch fire, rescue, ambulance and police (FRAP) units as soon as possible, based on acceptable response times. I invented the FRAP acronym for easy recall, and I hope it sticks, if there is no other alternative. Unfortunately, due to a mixture of technical and political reasons, the Philippines has not adopted 911 as a national number, because some LGUs would rather use their own three-digit numbers such as 117 and 168. I actually proposed a technical solution to that problem, but it was not adopted either. For whatever it is worth, my solution is to install a call forwarding system that could route all calls to a central operator, regardless of what number is dialed. It is very sad for me to know that up to now, even if our country is already over one hundred years old, there are still many LGUs that do not have fire trucks. it ...
Read more