SCUTTLEBUTT

Agency stuck in Stone Age

With the advent of digitization, which the Marcos administration is hotly pursuing, some agencies remain stuck in the antiquated process of encoding the data of citizens seeking financial and medical aid.

A particular department that is mandated to assist and uphold the welfare of less fortunate Filipinos is a perfect example.

An individual in need of aid said she went to the government agency at around 2 a.m. to get in the queue early and be able to head back to the hospital where her husband was confined.

She was able to get past the gate at around 11 a.m. and started taking the first step, which she completed at 2 p.m. She endured crackers and bottled water for lunch just to stay in the line because if she left it, she might not be able to return.

“What irked me was the redundant interviews by social workers even if I had already been interviewed in their district office in Laguna. They kept asking the same questions over and over!” she lamented.

Worse, the approved guarantee letter, a precious document that needed to be submitted to the hospital by the department, was to be further scrutinized by a department on the upper floor of the agency.

Affixing the signature also took time, making clients wait for hours. “We are not being ungrateful. But the system must be fixed. Pity the senior citizens. They can help several individuals if they adopt a better system,” the tired and starving help-seeker, who is in her 60s, told Daily Tribune. Citizens who endure the long lines badly need financial aid.

Those seeking aid must not feel like they are begging for it, which is very degrading since it should automatically be part of an efficient healthcare system.

While the typhoon season has started and many Filipinos affected by the inclement weather require help, the government must see to it that citizens are well taken care of.

The aid seeker said that what she brought up were mere suggestions so that the government could serve more citizens in the fastest way possible.

The government is expected to come to the aid of its hard-up citizens since the money it spends comes from taxes.

Ethanol for power may just work

The government is studying the possible use of blended fuel for power plants to reduce carbon emissions.

A Department of Energy (DoE) official said biodiesel with a high blend of fuel from plants for use by power generation facilities will help achieve nationwide carbon reduction goals.

The viability of having a 55-percent biofuel blend will first be tested on 281 Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) power plants, which primarily operate on diesel that service off-grid islands and communities.

A 55-percent biofuel blend will correspond to converting a diesel engine into a biodiesel engine, similar to a biomass power plant.

The proposal is still in its preliminary stages, with the possibility of involving privately owned diesel-fired power plants also being considered.

In addition to lowering carbon emissions, this move aims to reduce dependence on imported fuels, potentially leading to lower pump prices.

The DoE’s current guidelines mandate a gradual increase in the coco methyl ester blend in diesel fuel, starting at 3 percent in October, and rising to 5 percent by 2026.

Fuel retailers may also voluntarily increase the ethanol content in gasoline to 20 percent from the current 10 percent.

As of the end of 2023, diesel-fired, hybrid diesel-fired, and bunker diesel-fired power plants contributed 2,744 megawatts to the country’s power capacity, making up 9.6 percent of the energy mix.