Hopeless against plunder?

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
12/14/2007



Yesterday, right before the eyes of at eighty-five million Filipinos and in broad daylight, the greatest robbery of one of the country’s most valuable crown jewels was consummated – the Transco privatization, to the globalist conspiracy of Carlyle and China State Grid and to be run by Gloria’s elite cronies Razon and Ibazeta. They say Transco needs $850-M over five years for expansion and upgrading, or $ 170-M a year. Transco is earning up to P 18-B or $ 450-M a year. Deduct $ 170-M from $ 450-M and the country will be losing $ 280-M or P 11.48-B every year the next five years, and losing the P 18-B profit per annum for the next 25-years life of the grid or at least a trillion if in compounded earnings.

Among those in a political position to do so, is there anyone standing up against this swindle? - No one! If Jamby Madrigal claims she is protesting by bringing this to court, I say it is only posturing. Bringing it to court can not stop the robbery. The courts have ruled against the TRO on this “sale” and will not rule against its self again. The courts are also hogtied by the privatization laws approved by the legislature all these years and are hopeless helpless in such cases. I know that all the legislators know this Transco sale is a crime against all present and future Filipinos – yet they do nothing to reverse the laws they passed in order to outlaw these thefts of the people’s crown jewels.

Can there be hope in a country which allows this blatant, gargantuan swindle right under its nose? The question strikes me when I ponder this incredible feat of large scale daylight larceny from the people, but at the same instance I remember the determination of the finest group of Filipinos in the land now languishing in the Camp Crame maximum security facility – the Lim-Trillanes group with the young civilian leaders Fr. Robert Reyes, Attys. JV Bautista and Argee Guevara – who seek to change the country and stop this kind of national thievery as we see in the Transco privatization. I seek comfort in the thought that this swindle will be rectified when their genuine revolution finally transpires.

The mainstream media bills the Transco privatization as an “RP-China deal”, they wittingly or unwittingly leave out one very crucial fact – the Carlyle group is hiding behind the State Grid of China. Our volunteer researcher, Zaida Reyes, uncovered this fact while searching the China Daily on the Internet. The Carlyle group is a private global predatory investment company handling over seventy-five billion dollars using high level transnational political operators to penetrate and manipulate third world countries. Its operators include the range from U.S. Vice-President Cheney to the infamous IPP-PPA father Fidel V. Ramos and probably, as rumored now, Gloria’s brother Buboy Macapagal.

The Manila Standard of Enrique Razon, the front man for the Transco deal, headlined it as a deal that “earns the country $ 3.9-Billion” which is a facile lie. We would have lost control over a fundamental and strategically vital asset, lost the very huge income for the national coffers from it and the people will definitely not see the color of the money as it disappears in the sleight of hand of the finance whizzes of Gloria Arroyo’s cabal and its partners – the staggered payment offered by the new owners will come from the earnings of Transco anyway. Inevitably, as with all privatized utilities, electricity consumers will face increasing transmission rates after privatization.

It is the same in the Manila Water rates, set to go up in January 2008 by P 14.00 per cubic meter, or almost 67% over the present average rate of P20.00 per cubic meter. They reason that it’s for expansion, but why are we consumers shouldering the cost of their expansion when it every other normal, legitimate businesses expansion capital is put out by the business and not the consumers. It may be all right if assets ensuing from the expansion revert to the consumers but in this case it becomes Ayala’s property! Manila Water’s foreign partner, International Water (IWL), is a joint venture of US Bechtel Corp. and Italian power firm Edison SpA –hence the foreign RED CARPET for Gloria.

Next year offers more privatization plunder for Gloria, her cronies and her foreign sponsors such as the sale of: San Miguel government shares, the Food Terminal properties and facilities at Bicutan among many others. This plunder orgy will end - all happening with the collaboration or acquiescence of the “legal” political, legislative, judicial, military and police authorities of the country - until there’s nothing left to call the Philippines. Four national elections and even more legislative elections have been held, and still this plunder gets worse. They offer no hope. Patriots and nationalists have launched countless rallies against this plunder, but to no avail.

We invest our trust and hopes in Senator Trillanes, Gen. Lim and others– those capable of taking the daring and radical actions necessary to end the pillage of this country. The likes of Lim and Trillanes and the November 29 Movement alone restores our nation’s hope to be free from exploitation. Thus, this space issues this call: let us all work to Free the Freedom Fighters!

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