Filipinos Urged to Conserve Electricity During Pacquiao-Mayweather Fight.

I feel like I should state, from the beginning, that the source for this story is not Internet News Network (I.N.N.) . I confess, I've been guilty, in the past of posting links to satirical web stories, like Dead Beatles Reincarnate and Al Gore Sues Sun's Owner Over Global Warming, as a way of getting a few laughs, but I came upon this story on the Al Jazeera website, and as far as I can tell, the story is absolutely true.

According to Al Jazeera,

An energy official in the Philippines on Friday urged households to disconnect major appliances — but keep their televisions turned on — to avoid a mass blackout during Saturday night’s long-awaited bout between boxing champs Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.

Rante Ramos, secretary for the Palawan Electric Cooperative, said turning off refrigerators in 15,000 households could reduce electricity use by 2 megawatts, enough to compensate for the heavy demand television viewers will place on electricity grids when they tune in to see fellow countryman Pacquiao take on Mayweather, an American.

Ramos said air conditioners, washing machines and electric pots also consume a lot of electricity and should be turned off.

Big power consumers – including malls, department stores and hotels – have agreed to disconnect from the grid and use their own power generators from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday to also help reduce the load.

It will be Sunday morning, here in Philippines when the fight is televised live from the U.S.. We were not able to purchase pay-per-view via our cable company. We're hoping, however that we will be able to attend at one of the local venues in Dumaguete where it might be available.

We'll attend the vigil Mass Saturday evening so we should be able to see the fight. If, as I hope, we'll be able to see the pay-per-view at Lee Plaza Sunday AM, I will do my part and turn off the AC in the apartment before heading into town. Sorry, but the refrigerator stays plugged in.

If we're unable to watch the live pay-per-view, there's no way I'll sit in this apartment without air conditioning. We'll just have to risk the brown out.