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Davao small firms start purchase of own gensets

03/12/2010

Small businesses in Davao have started buying generator sets because of continuous brownouts.

Owner of Kopi Roti, Dr. Zeny Ortega, said with the situation now, they need to have a standby generator because their products need to be stored in freezers. She said their healthy ice cream named Picole and the imported dough for the bun that they sell need to be stored in freezers.

The power problem she said has been affecting the business but they have to find ways to sustain their operation.

Dr. Joseph Milana, a practicing physician also said that the medical industry would need consistent power supply because there are medicines that need to be refrigerated.

The Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (DCCCII) president Engr. Robert Quinto said they have no information on how many had lately acquired generator sets. But he said the DCCCII had conducted inventory of their members having their own generating sets.

Big establishments here started to voluntary deload from the Davao Light and Power Company during peak hours, among them SM City Davao even as the proposed deloading scheme is still to be approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission as to the subsidy fund.

The scheme had already been implemented in Palawan and Panay in 2004 with a subsidy fee on the cost of fuel of P.28 per liter.

The amount is still to be determined considering that most of the generator sets of these big establishments were acquired years back.

The others — malls, hotels and other related estab-lishments — showed interest and will cooperate once the scheme is implemented, he said.

Meanwhile, the Mindanao Business Council through its chairman Vicente Lao announced that the private sector in Mindanao will procure the required power generators to address the power crisis.

In a press statement he said “we can no longer wait for the government to address the crisis. The Epira anyway has sufficient provisions to allow us to solve the problem ourselves,” according to Lao.

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