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NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines – Long before the May 12 elections, Siquijor’s power supply was already problematic. It worsened after election day.
San Juan, Siquijor Mayor James Capundag told Rappler on Monday, June 2, that his town alone has been enduring weeks of grinding power outages that has become routine. In San Juan, the blackouts last for at least 22 hours daily.
“This is too much,” Capundag said in a mix of exasperation and resignation. “Imagine I entered the office at 6 am and it’s already brownout. I stayed until 4 pm and it’s still brownout.”
Electricity, by his account, flickers back only from 5 pm to 7 pm – just long enough to charge a phone or power a light bulb – before the island town plunges back into darkness until the next day.
“I can’t speak on behalf of other towns in Siquijor,” he said. “But I heard they also have the same situation.”
Elsewhere on the island, residents complained of power outages that began as rotational blackouts on May 11 and has since worsened into what appeared to many as a full-scale infrastructure collapse.
With power unavailable, residents have been left scrambling for basic needs such as clean water, communication, and healthcare. Water pumps remained offline, shops closed, and cold storage facilities ceased operations, raising concerns about food safety and public health.
Residents reported long walks to fetch water, unreliable phone signals, and overwhelmed hospitals. The outage has disrupted livelihoods and forced some families to leave the province. Classes were impacted in many areas.
The crisis has spotlighted Siquijor Electric Cooperative (Sipcor), the island’s power provider, long criticized for its poor infrastructure and absence of contingency planning. Sipcor is linked to the Villar family whose other firm, PrimeWater, is already under government scrutiny for widespread service failures in many provinces.
Sipcor, which is under the Prime Asia Venture Incorporated (PAVI), entered Siquijor in 2015 through a 20-year deal with the Province of Siquijor Electric Cooperative (Prosielco).
Sipcor took over off-grid power generation services from the National Power Corporation (Napocor) with a diesel plant backed by a P466-million initial investment. The facility has four power generation units each generating 1.616 megawatts (MW), with three units located in Siquijor town and one in Lazi.
The power crisis has dealt a blow to Siquijor’s tourism industry, which had seen increased investment over the past year. Several resorts have shut down or are operating at a loss, relying on diesel generators with limited fuel supplies.
Social media posts show footage of elderly residents in dark, unventilated homes and store owners discarding spoiled goods.
Despite the power crisis, somehow, tourists still came. On weekends, the beaches were packed. The power didn’t work, but the tourism machine kept churning.
Rian Niño Trinidad, public information officer of Cadiz City in Negros Occidental, happened to be in Siquijor on Saturday, May 31, for an island hopping trip. He said didn’t need to be a local to see what was wrong.
“Most of the beach resorts, and other businesses, especially in Larena and San Juan, were only using portable generating sets, especially during nighttime,” Trinidad said, noting how the generators have become lifelines for Siquijor’s tourism, the province’s main economic artery.
Trinidad said he was warned before his trip about a rare disease flagged in the province. But once on the island, he said, the warnings about glanders – and later, melioidosis – vanished.
At least six people were confirmed to have contracted the rare disease glanders in Siquijor. Two of them died in late May, but the Department of Health (DOH) said those who died also tested positive for melioidosis. Glanders and melioidosis are rare, potentially deadly bacterial infections typically found in soil and water, primarily affecting animals but also capable of infecting humans.
“No one was even talking about them in Larena,” he recalled. “It’s as if people don’t care about those reported diseases.”
Instead, he said, “The talk of the town there was “Brownout!’”
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dumaguete, which has jurisdiction over Siquijor province, said it has been aware of the island’s prolonged power outages.
“I really pity the people of Siquijor for the current mess,” Monsignor Julius Heruela told Rappler on Tuesday, June 3.
But Heruela said he was informed that electricity had been restored in four of the province’s six municipalities – San Juan, Lazi, Maria, and Enrique Villanueva. He said the towns of Larena and Siquijor, however, remained without power.
Mayor Capundang said local officials had thought that the aging power generating sets of the Napocor, believed to be around 40 years old, had already been replaced by Sipcor. But he said he just learned that the equipment remained unchanged.
Despite the Villar group’s investment, Capundag questioned the quality of the Sipcor’s services, describing them as “not nice.”
He also said Siquijor Governor Jake Vincent Villa and his father, Representative Jeckoy Villa, would be in a better position to provide more information, saying that they know better about Sipcor’s operations and its entry into the province.
Capundag said the Villas were already in power in Siquijor when the Villar group became a major player in the province’s power supply sector.
Rappler sought the comment of Governor Villa, but he has not responded to calls and messages as of this posting. – Rappler.com
