Here in the Philippines, the hot season starts about now, and will continue until the monsoon starts in late May or June, when afternoon showers usually cool us in the afternoon.
One of the problems is that here in the Philippines, due to the increase in prosperity and population, we use a lot more electricity.
our electricity gets 14 percent from hydroelectric plants, which of course in the dry season the water level goes down and so does electricity from these source. Hence the talk of reopening the mothballed reactor in Bataan.
but this also means updating the wires, which often as people build up more houses in our area meant tangles of wires along the streets, and often the rice trucks piled high with bags of rice, or other delivery trucks would snag these older sagging wires, resulting in injuries and loss of electric power.
In the past few years, however, they have been replacing the tangled electric wires with high energy cables and transformers.
So today the city had a day long brownout, presumably to fix the wires. Lots of fixing goes on right before elections, which are due in May.
However, brownouts are a lot fewer than when I first moved here back in the mid 2000s. Which is good because the town is now a city and has more and more businesses and new homes being built, at least they were being built before Covid hit and destroyed a lot of jobs.
We have two generators, and when Kuya checked our main generator it needed a new starter, but because he was harvesting rice it couldn't be fixed until today.
I have a smaller back up generator, enough for my house only, not the business part of the compound: mainly for fans and refrigerator, and if I turn everything off it will even let me turn on my airconditioner.
Yesterday I had it cleaned since it was a year since I used it, and I ran that until Kuya came back from the farm and supervised the fixing of the larger generator this afternoon.
God bless those who invented air conditioners. By the way, here they are called aircon... and by having aircon it means that offices are more productive since they can stay open in the hot weather. I do feel sorry for the sick and elderly poor here however: Fans help, but still it stresses the body.
the prices of air conditioners are way down: a small one is about 10 000 peso (200 USD) but usually a good strong one is two or three times that much. But a lot of folks get money from relatives overseas to help them pay the bills, and the growing middle class are buying them.
And now electric bills are going up, thanks to the increase in prices of coal/oil/ natural gas.
And for farmers: the increase in the price of diesel, plus a huge 40percent increase in the price of fertilizer means a lot of farmers might not make a profit this year, and/or the price of food will go up.
This is not a good sign.
The election campaigns are starting: Lacson was here the other day visiting the mayor.
One forgets he is running, since Leni has all the elites excited, but is not popular with the non elites here. And BongBong Marcos is popular, but no one will admit it. No signs for him up in town.
Most of the signs up are for the mayor and/or the governor. And since election violence is alas common here, we are hoping things stay safe here for the next month.
In the meanwhile, it is the anniversary of Lolo's death, so we took flowers to his grave and lit candles and said a few prayers. Sigh.
It is also Joy's birthday, so she bought a cake and I told Kuya just to get a pizza to supplement suppertime.
Yes, we have pizza (Greenwich, and Shakeys and several smaller places and kiosks which heat up frozen pizza for customers). That was not true when I first moved here.
One problem here is that the public hospitals are short of physicians. I don't know what is behind that: but it means a lot of folks are asking for money to see a private physician or go to the small private hospitals in town. A relative of the cook went to dialysis treatment at the public hospitals in the next town and they were understaffed so her treatment was postponed. In the hot weather, that is not good.
She is fairly young and I don't know why she had renal failure; another relative of the cook died due to diabetic kidney failure a few years ago, because dialysis was too expensive. Now it is subsidized but not everyone will get it if they can't find doctors to run the units and/or can't afford the medicines they need to stay alive.
Sigh.
In the meanwhile, schools are open "face to face". The high school students need a vaccine but they aren't giving it to kids yet.
Don't ask me. I have two shots but doubt I will get another, partly because I suspect we all got the omnicron cold when there was a big surge (but we weren't sick enough to get tested).
Covid is now being considered endemic, not pandemic, meaning it's around but a low level.
latest data: 440 new casea and 208 deaths.
Tourists can come and enjoy the beaches but they will test them first, but no longer require quarantine.
I will have to check about the latest recommendations for rice delivery: the regulations change all the time, but since our drivers are vaxed they don't need an expensive test before every delivery.
Our mayor had started a child clinic around the corner to treat children and supply medicine for the elderly poor, and give out free rabies shots, but with the pandemic, all these programs are short of money.
But a new clinic is now opening.
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