A PETITION has been filed on Thursday to the offices of energy stakeholders with 14,000 signatures from fed up consumers who wanted a solution to the decades-long power problem in Occidental Mindoro.
In a letter, consumer Noel Guerrero said that the petition has been filed to call the national government and its agencies to act on the power crisis which has deprived the people of Occidental Mindoro a decent way of life and fair opportunity to earn a living.
He added that the power woes had derailed the recovery efforts of the province from the economic damages brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The power outages also stunted the economic potential and growth in the province, he said.
“Disgruntlement, hopelessness, we don’t deserve this,” Guerrero said. “The petition prays to have our woes be finally addressed by the government as we dearly hold on to the promise of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to free us from darkness. We earnestly ask that the President and his concerned officials attend to our call for help and assist the local government units, elected leaders and distributors to resolve the crisis. We pay our dues diligently, thus we deserve no less than a decent service.”
He said that the petition was signed by 14,000 concerned and disgruntled citizens from the different sectors in the province.
The rotational brownouts that last for 12 to 14 hours a day have also affected the entrepreneurs and business owners, Guerrero said.
At one point, most parts of the province even had no electricity for 36 straight hours.
The people believe that the ongoing crisis needs the intervention of national government agencies to expedite the technical and legal issues that delay the process of establishing a stable power supply.