CEBU CITY – The Visayan Electric Company (VECO), the power utility firm that serves Metro Cebu, has urged Cebuanos to refrain from flying kites one week before and after the Election Day, May 9, to ensure that power supply will not be interrupted.
VECO revealed that it already recorded 37 cases of lateral outages and five cases of feeder wide outages triggered by kites that got entangled in power lines.
“We will be having a kite caravan in all barangays that are flying so many kites and we will orient the barangay officials about the danger of it next week,” said Saludes VECO vice president for engineering, Engr. Valentin Saludes III.
Saludes identified the city’s most “kite-prone” areas, which include arangays Punta Princesa, Tisa, Labangon, T. Padilla, Suba Pasil, Quiot Pardo, Bulacao Pardo, Ermita, Inayawan, Mambaling, and Duljo Fatima.
Also included in the “kite-prone” areas are Barangays Lawaan and Tangke in Talisay City and Barangays Guizo and Looc in Mandaue City.
Saludes, however, stressed that VECO can only appeal to the public not to fly kites during the election week and could not effect apprehensions.
Cebu City Ordinance No. 1471 allows the flying of kites only in open areas of at least 3,000 square meters while it is prohibited in areas where there are power lines, telephone wires or other similar wiring connections.
“What we can do in VECO is that to encourage because we cannot penalize,” stated by Saludes.
Still in preparation for the upcoming election, VECO has devised an election contingency plan, which includes Load Center Check, Precinct Wiring Integrity Check, Intensified Line Clearing Programs, Massive Line Facilities Maintainance and Enhancement Works, Manual and Automatic Load Drop Exemption, and Mobile 5-kW Generators.
In case of an immense blackout, VEO said it has already sealed agreements with power generation companies that are ready to feed power anytime. – BusinessNewsAsia.com