Power restored in Cotabato City, Maguindanao, PPALMA

COTABATO CITY – Supply of electricity to dozens of Central Mindanao towns and Cotabato City was restored noontime Friday following a 15-hour outage due to the destruction by saboteurs of a power relay pylon in Aleosan, North Cotabato.Unidentified menon Thursday night toppled down Tower 68 of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in Barangay Pagangan in Aleosan town by setting off explosives they strapped on its four angular columns, detonated from a distance using mobile phones.An NGCP advisory issued at 12:30 saidand At 12 noon, NGCP energized the Tacurong-Sultan Kudarat 69kV line to serve as alternate route of the bombed Kibawe-Sultan Kudarat 138kV line to serve Cotabato Light, COTELCO and MAGELCO customers.It addedand Reports show that the alternate line failed to energize this morning due to vegetation hanging on the lines causing a permanent fault. NGCP has since cleared the vegetation.NGCP continues to assess the damages of the bombed tower along the Kibawe-Sultan Kudarat line. The 9:28 p.m.attack in Aleosancaused a 15-hour blackout in dozens of towns in the adjoining North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces and in all of the 37 barangays in Cotabato City.Despite the restored direct power from NGCP, Cotabato Light communications officer Arlene Hepiga said a 2-3 hour power rotational brownout has to be implemented in its franchise area.She said the power provided by the Tacurong substation are still not enough to energized all areas of the Cotabato Light franchise which includes the city and parts of Sultan Kudarat and Datu Odin Sinsuat, both in Maguindanao.North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Talino-Mendoza said local officials in Aleosan are now helping investigators establish the identities of the people behind the latest bombing of an NGCP facility.No fewer than five towers of the NGCP in different North Cotabato towns were felled in one bombing after another in the past eight months.Local officials tagged the brigand Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) as responsible for the attacks.The BIFF is not covered by the interim ceasefire pact between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.Many BIFF commanders openly admits being sympathetic to the Independent State of Iraq and Syria. (Using a drone video imaging gadgets, multi-media journalist Ferdinandh Cabrera captured the fallen Steel Tower No. 68 in Barangay Pagangan, Aleosan, North Cotabato. He shared the image to NDBCnews.com.ph- ed)