More households can expect to have lights on for New Year’s Eve as linemen from the Visayan Electric Co. (VECO) and its affiliated companies are working round the clock to restore the remaining 36 percent of power line segments under its franchise area in Metro Cebu.
In its advisory issued on Thursday, VECO said 348 of the 544 power line segments within the VECO’s franchise area have already been restored two weeks after strong Typhoon Odette devastated parts of Mindanao and Visayas.
With the restored lines, the company is now capable of delivering more than 143 megawatts on a daily basis to 127,014 out of the 474,182 affected customers in its franchise area.
Kenneth Cobonpue, chair of the Regional Development Council-Central Visayas (RDC-7), said the development would mean a running recovery rate of 27 percent.
“With two full days still to go before the year 2021 ends, there is much hope that VECO’s committed target to reenergize 30 percent of their total number of customers in their franchise area by midnight of Friday this week (Dec. 31), is slowly becoming very likely and probable,” Cobonpue said in a message.
Cobonpue underscored the determination of the officials in the government to bounce back amid the calamity brought by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and Typhoon Odette.
He also lauded the responders and volunteers who sacrificed their time to assist local government units in distributing assistance as well as in the clean-up drive to collect debris left by the typhoon.
Cobonpue noted their “unperturbed determination to reenergize, reactivate and revive as many households, offices, and establishments in Cebu as safely and as expeditiously as humanly as possible.”
“Without a doubt, slowly but surely, Cebu will rise back up again and will continue to move forward,” said Cobonpue, who also spoke as convenor of Project Balik Buhay, a private sector-led post-calamity effort in the Visayas.
