Why fear the Fire Prevention Month?

By Herbert Vego

WHAT? Fear this month of March? Isn’t that ironic when we are supposed to be extra-cautious in this Fire Prevention Month?

Ironic, indeed, but the records show that it is in March of every year when accidental fires raze homes and commercial buildings. Thus, we need to take fire protection seriously.

The simplest explanation from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) is that March is the month with the highest number of fire incidents in the country.

In the previous year, the BFP recorded 15,679 fire incidents in the entire Philippines, representing a 20.7-percent increase compared to the 12,000 fire incidents in 2022.

Have we not learned our lesson? Thirty-eight years have passed since 1986 when the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos signed Proclamation No. 360 declaring March as “Fire Prevention Month.”

Only last February 18, two persons died in a fire that razed four boarding houses to the ground in Barangay San Nicolas, La Paz, Iloilo City.

Alarmed, Mayor Jerry P. Treñas issued this short message in the social media: “I call on everyone to be on alert for any possibility of the occurrence of fire. Due to the warm temperature and the effects of the El Niño phenomenon, there is always the possibility of fires occurring.”

The city’s power-distribution utility, MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) likewise posted fire-safety precautions on its Facebook page.

“We are doing our best,” said Engr. Bailey del Castillo, the company’s vice-president for network development and operations. “Our linemen are zealous in implementing fire safety and prevention programs. We have a hazard-mapping team which routinely conducts inspection of power lines from pole to pole, all the way to home interiors.”

Fire safety is on top of the five-year modernization agenda visualized by MORE Power President Roel Z. Castro. This means that by 2025, the company would have achieved its goal of becoming a world-class power distributor.

In collaboration with the Iloilo City Government, MORE Power is now “undergrounding” the wires along J.M. Basa St. from Plaza Libertad to corner Guanco.

In our interview for the program “Tribuna sang Banwa” on Aksyon Radyo last Sunday, Niel Parcon (MORE Power’s vice-president for corporate energy sourcing) said they had to keep in step with the rise of Iloilo as an urban center, which is reflected by the rise of power customers from 62,000 to 96,000 in four year.

Such a rise also indicates the decline in the number of power thieves, who have opted to “connect,” thus minimizing the system’s loss to allowable level – from 31% to 7%. The system’s loss allowed by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for private distribution utilities is 5.5 percent.  If the loss exceeds that cap, the cost is charged to customers.

System loss refers to energy wasted in transit from the power plants to the end-users. Pilfered electricity adds up to that loss.

Power pilferage or violation of Republic Act No. 7832 is punishable by reclusion temporal or a fine ranging from fifty thousand pesos (P50,000) to one hundred thousand pesos (P100,000) or both at the discretion of the court.

The eagerness of power thieves to apply for legal connection is not only because they fear getting apprehended and jailed.  It’s also because they have learned a lesson from previous fires that were “electrical in nature.”

“Jumpers” – slang for illegal connections — cause electricity overloading.

Let this information be an “incentive” for power thieves to apply for their own electricity meters.

What would it profit a home owner if he saves money on electricity but loses all possessions, if not his own life?