Power workers will pray and be blessed today to ensure that computers controlling their electricity generators and transmitters don't fail at midnight.
The bid for good luck to ensure supplies are uninterrupted comes despite assurances by electricity generators and providers that they have had their systems checked.
Similar promises have been given over the past few days by other essential-services companies and government departments. They have taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers and used hours of television and radio air-time to allay fears.
Y2K experts, however, say that although the Philippines is not as computerised as Hong Kong, Japan or Australia and is therefore not as vulnerable, it is less prepared. They say the financial resources have not been available to ensure a thorough checking of essential systems.
Spokesmen for the National Power Corporation, the Philippines' biggest power generator and transmitter, and the Manila Electric Company, the main supplier to the capital, said yesterday they would hold Mass for employees on duty today and tomorrow.
The corporation suffered an embarrassing power failure on December 10 when jellyfish jammed pumps used to cool power generators in the coastal northern province of Pangasinan. Power supplies were again briefly interrupted during an earthquake two days later.
Porfirio Palo, Y2K project manager of the Manila Electric Company, advised Filipinos to take any power failures in their stride.