The twice-weekly flights of Cebu Pacific Airways, using the ATR jetprop, will reportedly resume on Dec. 2, 2020, instead of Nov. 30 as it is the last day of the suspension of travel of all Locally Stranded Individuals (LSIs) and Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROFs).
Whether the flights will be as much as 70% full, instead of the previous 50%, remains to be seen.
Starting with the Dec. 2 flight, the airline will no longer reserve three seats as isolation areas for sick passengers as this requirement has already been removed by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) as the airlines are already requiring RT-PCR or antigen tests for boarding passengers.
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Residents of areas where the eye of super typhoon Rolly passed experienced pain in the ears during the period.
The rapid drop in barometric pressur e from the normal to Rolly’s 905 millibars or 90.5 kiloPascals, meant the pressure outside our ears went down before the pressure inside our ears could acclimate or adjust. The pressure imbalance caused a sensation of fullness in the ears, equivalent to suddenly flying from ground level to a height of 911 meters.
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The Power Restoration Rapid Deployment (PRRD) Task force Kapatid sent by Malacanang thru the National Electrification Administration (NEA) and the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (PhilRECA) to assist FICELCO is now moving fast to achieve their target of restoring electricity to a large part of the island buy the first week of December, just over a month after typhoon Quinta and Rolly battered the province.
The 41 teams of linemen and equipment come from Benguet Electric Cooperative, Inc. (BENECO), Sorsogon Electric Cooperative, Inc. – 1 (SORECO 1), Batangas Electric Cooperative, Inc. – 1 (BATELEC 1), Batangas Electric Cooperative, Inc. – 2 (BATELEC 2), Iloilo Electric Cooperative, Inc. – 1 (ILECO 1), Iloilo Electric Cooperative, Inc. – 2 (ILECO 2), Aklan Electric Cooperative, Inc. (AKELCO), Antique Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ANTECO), Capiz Elctric Cooperative, Inc (CAPELCO), Guimaras Electric Cooperative, Inc. (GUIMELCO), Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc. (CENECO), Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative, Inc. (NOCECO), Northern Negros Electric Cooperative, Inc. (NONECO), Ticao Island Electric Cooperative, Inc. (TISELCO), Iloilo Electric Cooperative, Inc. – 3 (ILECO 3), and ONE MERALCO FOUNDATION.
FICELCO member-consumer-owners who are dissatisfied with the cooperative and are supporting its privatization should consider this: would these electric cooperatives from far-away islands and provinces send the same teams to help in power restoration efforts if a private company takes over FICELCO?
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Judging from the sights we have seen in the immediate weeks after super typhoon Rolly, we can pick up several important lessons.
First, stock up on supplies like water, canned goods, coffee, sugar and the like, and, to a lesser extent, fuel for your vehicles.
Second, in times of calamity, cash is king and credit is not good. Have at least a month’s worth of spending cash available.
Third, always have that generator in working condition, making it run for 15 minutes twice a month.
Fourth, if you have some money, spend it on typhoon-proofing your windows, doors and aircon frames or replacing decade-old GI sheets.
Fifth, wrap valuable gadgets and equipment, vital documents and memorabilia in plastic.
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THE SPEECH. The managing director was scheduled to speak at an important convention, so he asked Jenkins, one of his employees, to write him a punchy, twenty-minute speech. When the MD returned from the big event, he was livid.
“What’s the idea of writing me an hour-long speech?” he raged at Jenkins. “Half the audience walked out before I was finished.”
Jenkins was baffled.
“I wrote you a twenty-minute speech,” he said. “I also gave you the two extra copies you asked for.”