This coming October 29 to 30, I will be joining the 5th Mindanao Bloggers Summit which will be held in Iligan City at the Celadon Pension Haus. I’m excited to join this event to meet the newly organize Iligan Bloggers Society and network with other bloggers from Mindanao and other parts of the Philippines. 

The event is co-presented by Globe Telecom – “You’re On with Globe: Taking mobile internet to the next level”. With the proliferation of smartphones nowadays and the price getting cheaper its time to be mobile with your internet access. I love how the modern world today makes my day so updated about the world around me. From friends in social media networks, updating my blogs, checking my analytics, checking-in to where I am and many others, all possible just in my hand using a smartphone and Globe Telecoms mobile internet.

Globe Telecom offers the most affordable mobile internet plan with Globe Prepaid PowerSurf15. If you are hungry for more, you can also have there Globe Postpaid PowerSurf that give Globe Postpaid subscribers bulk megabytes of mobile data, consumable per kilobyte (kb) and valid for 30 days.Postpaid PowerSurf allows you to be ON at fixed charges, enabling you to enjoy push notifications and instant updates on your mobile phone.

Globe Postpaid PowerSurf is available in 3 denominations:
PowerSurf 99 with 50MB allocation, PowerSurf 299 with 300MB allocation and PowerSurf 499 with 1GB allocation.

Not too privy about KB/MB consumption of mobile data? Fast facts: A 1 one-minute YouTube video viewed is approximately 2MB, 1 pure text e-mail sent is approximately 20KB, 1 pure text tweet sent is approximately 30KB, 1 page of a Google search result is approximately 40KB. One page of Facebook (http://m.facebook.com) is approximately 25KB. PowerSurf 99 lets you enjoy 1,250 Google searches or viewing of 25 1-minute videos! Visit www.globe.com.ph/surf for a quick assessment of your mobile data usage as well as for more details on KB/MB usage.

Turn on your Globe PowerSurf now!

For Prepaid PowerSurf, text POWERSURF15 to 8888 to register. Other available variants: Text POWERSURF30 to 8888, P30 for 3 hours, valid 1 day; text POWERSURF50 to 8888, P50 for 5 hours,It is valid 3 days. For Postpaid PowerSurf, text POWERSURF 99, POWERSURF 299 and POWERSURF 499 to 8888.

For all of you bloggers and would be bloggers, hope to see you at the 5th Mindanao Bloggers Summit in Iligan City and will talk about future collaborations.

CEPALCO or the Cagayan de Oro Electric Power and Light Company which is the major distributor of electric power in Northern Mindanao is gearing up to an awareness campaign for a Solar Energy Mindanao. Solar Energy is one of the cleanest technology to generate electricity and has low maintaining cost. It very fast to setup which can be ready in about one year time unlike any other electric generators which can take up to 3 to 5 years in construction time. It is one of the immediate solution that CEPALCO find to mitigate the looming energy shortage in Mindanao in the coming years. Solar Energy in Mindanao is the way to go.

Last Saturday September 3, 2011, The CDOBloggers group was invited to a Solar Energy Awareness Talk spearheaded by CEPALCO, the local electric distribution company in Cagayan de Oro City. The speaker was Engr. Cecilio Sumaoy. We were enlightened and we all realized that it’s high time for the Mindanao people to fully understand the reliability and effectiveness of the Solar Energy and support the development plan for Mindanao its economic growth and future power needs that is sustainable.

Mindanao will be short in power capacity in the very near future. As the population grows and as the economy of Mindanao prospers, the demand of power also increases. That is a fact right now. So how will the current Power Plants address these fast growing demands without us experiencing all those annoying blackouts? Yes, probably the current Power Plants we have now will help but until when? Below is a part of the news I got from Philippine Star concerning the tight electricity supply situation in Mindanao.

Energy Secretary Rene Almendras said the government is also concerned over the tight electricity supply situation in Mindanao especially because reserve energy margins remained below the targeted 21 percent, which could plunge the island into daily brownouts again if a power plant or unit breaks down.

In 2010, a dry spell brought by El Niño caused water levels to go critical in Mindanao’s hydro plants, causing a rotating daily brownout that stunted a three-fold increase in its economy in the last three years of the Arroyo administration.

Even with plans by Conal Holdings, Inc., owned by the Alcantara-led Alsons, Inc., to put up two 200-megawatt coal-fired power plants in Sarangani and Zamboanga, and a P25-billion plan by Aboitiz Power, owned by the Aboitiz family which divested its maritime cargo business to go into the energy industry, to construct a power plant in Davao, power demand in Mindanao is expected to exceed supply by 2014.

Almendras said the Department of Energy is considering the transfer of oil-fired power barges and the re-commissioning of a 35-megawatt thermal plant in Iligan to offset a very tight electricity supply situation in Mindanao as power supply margins last summer had breached the required 21 percent despite the full generation performance of its hydro-electric power plants.

Local economists have bewailed the current high electricity costs in the Philippines as the major contributor to the rapid decline in the country’s competitiveness in the world market, with neighbors like Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand offering rates as low as 5-7 cents per kilowatthour against the Philippines’ 23 cents.

In Mindanao our electricity is mostly produce from Diesel, Geothermal, Coal and Hydro. These sources are finite and dwindling while Solar Energy has always been there for the longest time and has been utilized by other fast growing countries.

So Why SOLAR ENERGY?

The biggest factor why most people refuse Solar Energy in Mindanao is because of its COST. It’s expensive! It’s not practical! That’s the argument.

Well here are some Facts:
Solar installation cost is declining! Because the demand is increasing fast and the production cost is getting down since the technology is mature already. Solar Energy is the cheapest alternative and one of the fastest way to put up in large scale power plant where it can be setup in less than a year. Solar Energy can supply the world’s total energy requirement for the next hundred years! Electricity from Solar Energy is covered by the Renewable Energy Law.

The following are the existing Renewable Power Technology in the Philippines:

• Wind – All located in LUZON
• Ocean – All located in LUZON
• Hydro – Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao
• Biomass – mostly in Luzon and Visayas
• Solar – Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao (including the 1MW we have in Cagayan de Oro)

Now, did you know that even if those Renewable Energy Technologies are largely located and consumed by the people from Luzon and Visayas, we here in Mindanao are also paying? YES DEFINITELY! That is because of this Renewable Energy Law below:

FiT-All (Feed in Tariff Allowance) – The FIT-All is considered most relevant among the calculations because this manifests the pass-on effect on the consumers’ electricity bills. ALL electricity end users are required to pay a uniform Peso/kWh charge as a feed-in tariff allowance (FIT-All), which will be placed in a fund from which the payments to renewable energy developers will be paid. This FIT-All, which will be determined annually, will appear as a separate line item on customers’ bills.

It simply means, even if the people of Mindanao chose to do NOTHING, Mindanao consumers will still end up paying for those Renewable Energies already established. So why are we all just sit around opposing the generation of a Solar Energy in Mindanao while other consumers from Luzon and Visayas are enjoying their own Renewable Energy with us here in Mindanao paying at the same time?

Come to think of it, the cost of Mindanao electricity usage through Solar Energy divided by the whole Electricity consuming population of the entire Philippines? Do you still think it’s expensive? We are just talking about the cost issue here. How about its effect to our failing environment? That’s a HUGE bonus! So let’s support the rapid development of Solar Energy in Mindanao so we will not be left behind.

MBS 3 or the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit is now on full swing. Since I’m one of the organizer of this event I got a super busy day today finalizing the venue for the event which will be held on October 24, 2009. For those who have not yet pre-registered please register now at this link. The place of the event cannot accomodate the horde of participants so this will be on a first registered first to get a pass basis only, so hurry.

The theme of this year’s MBS is “Mindanao Bag-Ohon ang Panan-aw”. There will be several guest speakers from around Mindanao and one very important person with International status. Of course, there will also be blogging seminars on the afternoon. The next day will be adventure fun; for those  who want to experience the adrenaline rush of the famous Cagayan de Oro whitewater rafting you can booked it now also to make your stay here in CDO a very memorable one.