Davao City and Electric Powers (Part 1)

Americans brought commercial electricity to Davao City in the late 1920s. The power station in Bajada (Near Redemptorist Church and Abreeza) was badly damaged during the 1945 battle for liberation of Davao. Through American tenacity, power was restored early in 1946. In 1950, the American consumers offered to sell Davao Light & Power Company (DLPC) to Don Pablo Lorenzo who owned a 500 hectare abaca plantation in Calinan and was one of Mindanao’s top lawyers.

Don Pablo declined but said he had a friend/client who might be interested. That friend/client was Don Ramon Aboitiz who owned Cebu’s biggest abaca and copra company with branches all over Visayas and Mindanao. Don Pablo brought the American owners and Don Ramon together and struck a deal. Out of gratitude, one of the first things Don Ramon did was to bring electricity to Calinan (where the Lorenzo Plantation was) ahead of Tibungco and Lasang. Relying mainly on the Fairbank Morse 300 kilowatt generator in Bajada (though getting old and damaged in WW2) plus the substation in Ponciano Reyes St., DLPC improved until in 1963, it became the first utility in the nation to use bunker fuel (in Unit 14).

In 1970, Engineer Ernesto Remedios Aboitiz (nephew of Don Ramon) became DLPC President. Thus began the new era of DLPC. Because of Ernie’s schooling/training/skills DLPC became the most innovative and progressive utility in Visayas and Mindanao. Because of his reputation as a skilled administrator he was appointed chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority. The National Power Corporation was about to finish Lake Lanao’s Maria Cristina grid of seven power stations stretched along Maria Cristina River creating cheap, abundant hydro power which could supply Mindanao’s needs for years.

In 1979, for the first time since 1946, DLPC’s Bajada plant stopped supplying power to Davao City. The Maria Cristina grid gave Davao City all its power needs. Senator Emmanuel Pelaez of Misamis Oriental cut the ribbon in the opening of the hydro power facility with a happy Ernesto R. Aboitiz as official host. Sadly, income of NPC from sales of electricity to Mindanao were not used to improve/increase Maria Cristina’s potential. The money was used to develop NPC projects in Luzon and Visayas. From the 1970’s up to this time, NPC did very little to repair, improve, replenish the worn-out generator parts.

Today, only 4 of the 7 Maria Cristina power plants are working. An NPC engineer once said they did not even have money to buy new nuts/bolts to tighten the engines and stop the vibrations which is the main cause of generator break down. In 1991, Alfonso Ybañez Aboitiz eldest son of Ernesto, joined DLPC after finishing electrical engineering in Sta. Clara University in California. As President and Chief operating officer from 2003 to 2008, he brought the latest electric power techniques, strategies and systems analysis. During a national convention of utilities in Davao, Alfonso invites top Meralco officials to visit them.

Meralco was so impressed about the advance computerization machines and programs (installed by the Top Power Corp in Spain) saying it’s much better than what they had in Manila. The Aboitiz strategic forecasting project signaled that in the 2000’s, there will be more and longer El Niño’s. Aboitiz knew what will happen next so it began putting up a 200 plus megawatt coal powered plant in Binugao which was inaugurated by the late Pres. Noynoy Aquino in 2015. Aboitiz expecting trouble, kept all the Bajada Genarators plus 2 big barges generating plants in Top Condition. The 2013 to 2016 drought was so bad that Surigao’s Hinatuan waterfall ran out of water, the Lake Lanao and Bukidnon’s Pulangi reservoir shoreline dropped by 10 feet from the normal edge. Davao City was the only city in Mindanao without a daily brown out schedule from 2013 to 2016.