Samal beach resorts now back in business

By Cheneen R. Capon
Beach resorts in the Island Garden City of Samal are back in business after the Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative (Daneco) succeeded in restoring power in the island with the help of the Mindoro Grid Corp.
This was announced by Pastor Lozada Jr., president of the Samal City Resort Owners Association , who said that resorts lost as much 60 percent of their visitors during the Holy Week because of the two weeks of blackout caused by the destruction of the submarine cable connecting the island to its power source.
“We’re still recovering from the aftermath of the massive power outage in Samal last month,” Lozada told reporters last Monday.
Samal was thrown to darkness starting March 17 when the power submarine cable connecting the island to the main grid was destroyed when it was hit by the anchor of M/V Ecuador.
The island, which has an estimated 6.7 MW peak demand, is now energized by power supplied by the 7.5-megawatt (MW) diesel-fuelled modular generators contracted by Daneco from Mindoro Grid.
Since the arrival of the modular generation sets last March 29, Lozada said, beach resorts and other businesses went back to normal operation, except last Saturday when the island experienced again two instances of hour-long power interruptions “However, he said, affected resort owners have not received any explanation from the Daneco on the recent outages.”
Lozada said majority of the total 80 resorts mostly lining the beaches of the island recorded loss during the Holy Week period which was usually considered as the peak season every year.
“About 50 to 60 percent of bookings were cancelled because of the massive blackout,” he said, adding over 70 beach resorts and eight other high end resorts recorded a drop in tourist arrival.
City tourism officer Jennifer Cariaga said the tourism office recorded some 300,000 guests during last year’s Holy Week break. “Beach resorts are usually full of visitors who are coming from neighboring provinces and cities in Mindanao.”
IGaCoS councilor Dan Gervacio, chairman of the city council committee on energy, said earlier that the Daneco is still assessing the severity of the damage. The repair would take six months, he added.
While assessment is ongoing, he said, there has been plan to totally replace the decades-old 1.3-kilometer power cable which may cost around P200 million.
Gervacio said there was also a proposal of rerouting the cable to ensure same incident won’t happen in the future. The councilor, who used to work with Daneco, said it was already the third time the cable was broken due to same circumstance.