The big news, the wish list

By Noralyn Mustafa

JOLO residents were in the midst of wondering aloud what was hitting them month after month each time they got their electric bills where an item printed "PPA" almost doubled the charges for the actual consumption.

Why on earth were they supposed to pay the PPA, they asked the local Napocor and the electric cooperative through Vice Mayor Delma Ynawat who has been going back and forth to Manila, writing countless letters to anyone who could give the answers and bring some rationality to a rather desperate situation, only to be informed that we were not being charged the PPA (power purchase adjustment), but the FCA (fuel cost adjustment). Huh? At 90 percent of the charges on consumption?

And for electric power that has one of the highest, if not the highest rate in the country, that is here this moment and gone the next? Unannounced, unexpected shutdowns that suddenly hit you like a blow on the head when you're minding your syntax as you beat the deadline for your column, or throw you into pitch darkness when you're in the middle of the room without any flashlight, candle or even a match?

I can't count how many unsolved murders, unfulfilled romances, unresolved mysteries, unrevealed identities, unfired guns I have watched on television, all aborted with the finality of a blackened screen.

Believe me, this is true: I used to wear a penlight hanging like a pendant on a string around my neck each evening when the deep purple fell over my sleepy garden wall, until I discovered that there was such a thing as a fluorescent lantern.

This is my fourth PC. The past three all gave up the ghost because of the constant improper shutdown. And I will spare you the list of would-be masterpieces aborted, deleted, lost forever.

But back to the power service. During one of the numerous radio discussions about the electric power problem, a consumer suggested the requisition of a standby power barge. The Napocor representative quickly replied that Jolo did not have a mooring facility!

I'm almost afraid to ask: Can't we construct one?

And then last week, in the midst of all this, as sudden, as unexpected as the power shutdown, the big news broke out: the President had approved the holding of Balikatan 03-1 in Jolo.

The US Marines were landing even before we could solve the mind-blowing mystery of how "FCA" was spelled "PPA" over and over again.

And immediately, real life in Jolo replicated cable TV. All else was shunted aside, frozen in time sequence photography, suspended in mid-air, as everyone tried to recover from the suddenness of it all to discuss why they were opposing or supporting the war games that will be conducted here as surely as death, taxes and the PPA.

A "Miswarat (dialogue, discussion) on the Balikatan Exercises" will be held at the provincial convention center the whole day of Feb. 26, organized by the Jihad al Akbar headed by Ustadz Abdul-Muhaimin Abubakar in coordination with the Bus-Bus Peace Promoters-Unesco-Jakarta GenPeace and the JPIC (Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation) headed by Bishop Angelito Lampon, O.M.I., D.D., and jointly sponsored by the Office of the Provincial Governor, HRM Sultan Mohammad Jamalul Kiram III, Office of the Mayor of Jolo and Sulu Rep. Hussin U. Amin of the First District.

National Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and ARMM DILG assistant secretary Abraham Iribani will discuss the "positive aspects" while University of the Philippines Prof. Julkipli Wadi and Ustadz Ibrahim Ghazali will tell us the bad news.

Also set to talk to the multi-sectoral audience are ARMM Gov. Dr. Parouk Hussin, and Sultan Kiram.

From the looks of it, it's going to be serious business and the sectoral representatives-religious, legal, academe, NGOs, youth, LGUs, GOs, military, the Sultanate, the MNLF and women (why are we always last on the list-to have the last word?) will all want to say their piece.

Which is why I hope there won't be any black-out that will suddenly, unexpectedly turn their words into the sound of silence. Not that it's going to make any difference.

Because the latest word from the Pentagon is that the deployment of US troops here, in the words of a local television, is a "done deal." A fait accompli, signed, sealed and to be delivered in a matter of days.

But we are told that the deal includes a development package which I hope, unlike the war games itself, will be designed with prior consultation with the people of Sulu.

Please don't give us roads. Just finish the unfinished circumferential one some people have called "the longest road in the country," because it might never get finished.

Don't give us bridges. We had so much of them we didn't know where to put them, we even built one to span a foot-wide stream.

So what do we need? There's not enough space on this whole page to list them all. But if I were to add my own -- just one -- you guessed it: sufficient and constant electric power to help us see the light in this dark age.

And if by that light it will be possible for us to see the difference between PPA and FCA without the wailing and gnashing of teeth, then that will be a blessing.

Better still, if we don't have to pay it, however it is spelled.