Were those opposing the Cantakoy Hydro Project expressed regrets after experiencing unspecific rotating brownouts, now the order of the day in Bohol? While other critics in the provincial leadership may be eating humble pie for opposing the project, former board member now Inabanga Mayor Josephine Socorro Jumamoy, the most vocal among them, has its own rationale why she maintains such unyielding position over Cantakoy. The Cantakoy project was brought to light by Cong. Aris Aumentado of the second district in the wake of the current power crisis in Bohol. Lamenting why the power project was caught in the maelstrom of politics, the young Aumentado is taking the cudgels for his late father who was all agog to push the giant undertaking.

The late lawmaker Erico Aumentado has the foresight to predict the need for Bohol to have its own homegrown power source like the one in Cantakoy in Danao town. “The vindication of my father is most pronounced at this time when Bohol is in need of electricity”, thus said the young heir of the late solon. If Cantakoy was allowed to operate, harnessing its hydro source would amount to an equivalent of least 10 megawatts. Bohol bore the brunt of Leyte’s devastation from typhoon Yolanda after the transmission lines of its geothermal source was toppled down and it takes months to restore them to its normal positions. The idea of the young Aumentado was to tap the hydro power in Cantakoy in order to augment the power source in Bohol in case of a Leyte breakdown. But he lamented the prevalence of selfish interest of some provincial officials over the need for sustainable power connection courtesy of Cantakoy Falls.

JUMAMOY REACTS

Asked to react, the fighting lady mayor said she has no regrets opposing the Cantakoy project. In fact, she was proven right when she opposed the project from the start as shown from what happened right in the proposed site in the aftermath of the October 15 earthquake. Banking on a study of UP scientists that the karst formation of the Cantakoy area is vulnerable to landslides, Jumamoy said she was right all along after what happened. It was found out that a fault line was discovered in the Sua-Ylaya periphery, its location just within the proposed Cantakoy hydro project. According to Jumamoy, the fault lines in areas near Cantakoy triggered massive soil erosions and she cannot imagine if a power plant is operational in the landslide-prune site.