Op-Ed neo-colonialism

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
3/14-20/2011



Philippine mainstream newspapers that are rooted in the neo-colonial economy and dependent on their Western counterparts for ideology, inspiration, and content naturally reflect a significant amount of colonial mentality in their op-ed pages. One such proof is the proliferation in local op-ed sections of syndicated or featured columnists from Western newspapers, with a preponderance of conservative and neo-conservative views that tend to distort local readers’ appreciation of the greater political-economic milieu in line with their bias.

While there are some notable exceptions, such as progressive writer Ken Fuller, whose original articles for the domestic audience are published by The Daily Tribune, other foreign columnists--mostly of the neo-liberal stripe--often seem to engage in misinformation to waylay Filipinos from the concept of economic independence.

One of them is Peter Wallace, an Australian-born, self-proclaimed economic expert who dishes out advice through his Wallace Business Forum and writes “Like It Is” in the Manila Standard Today. Often acting as a spokesman for the foreign chambers of commerce, his aggressive critiques on RP’s vital issues are what would constitute as barbaric rudeness in other Asian cultures. Another one is John Mangun, who writes “Outside the Box” for the Business Mirror. His articles expound on economic globalization and liberalization, as well as stock market speculation, as the keys to Philippine economic salvation (even when these are just designed to favor foreign investors if you ask me).

Last Feb. 11, Peter Wallace wrote, “We have to wake up,” arguing that contrary to the common notion in the country that the Philippines is on top in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, it is actually falling far behind India , China , Malaysia , Egypt , Indonesia , Mexico , Thailand , and Vietnam--and correctly so, far behind at No. 9.

Wallace lamented: “That’s a long way down… Indonesia and Egypt were behind the Philippines in 2005, Vietnam trailed us in 2009, now they’re heading up.” Then he said that BPO operations cost less in Egypt and other countries than in the Philippines , which is true again. But right before he completed the logic of the “costs,” he inexplicably turned to criticize the Philippines on the issue of the use of English, stressing that for Filipinos to catch up, they must be educated in that language, adding that he has “badgered on this for years.”

However, when one probes deeper into why Wallace is adamant at it, his logic suddenly falls flat because NONE of the seven (out of eight) countries which by his own statistics are doing better than the Philippines in the BPO sector (China, Malaysia, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam) use English as their medium of instruction. India , of course, uses English; but it is clearly the exception.

Ironically, Wallace tried to divert attention from the real culprit for success or failure, i.e. cost. This, in spite of the fact that one of the major reasons regularly cited by Philippine BPOs for their difficulties has been the power costs for air-conditioning, equipment maintenance, etc.

Philippine electricity rates have become the highest in Asia since 2001 when the Asian Development Bank dangled a $300-million loan in exchange for the power privatization law known as EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act). These jumped even higher when Manny Pangilinan of the Salim group and other foreign investors took over Meralco in 2007, and with the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission), instituted the PBR (Performance Based Rate-setting) mechanism that gave Meralco gargantuan 60- to 80-percent profit increases annually.

But as Wallace has always promoted power privatization and deregulation, such a fact has, of course, been unsurprisingly obviated. So in order to skirt the cost issue further, he detours to education again, saying “I’m delighted the President agreed to 12 years to learn… but has yet to give English the priority it must have.” Frankly, though, the K+12 or the twelve year-basic education policy is only based on a misrepresentation of international education standards. As such, it is rejected by many Filipino public education experts and economists as an enormous burden.

Meanwhile, back to the issue of power rates, John Mangun in the Feb. 23rd edition of Business Mirror wrote, “Philippine electric rates highest? False,” apparently attempting to counter “one of the major daily newspapers” which he alleged ran the headline “PHL has world’s highest power rates.”

Mangun should have identified the “major daily” so that anyone could have easily verified the assertions made. But no; it seems he doesn’t want to identify the newspaper at all (unsure perhaps of the veracity of his counter-claims?).

What this writer can claim without any ambiguity is that many newspapers and columnists, including yours truly, have asserted that the Philippines indeed has “the highest power rates in Asia .” We have provided statistics, including compilations of entries that have individual cross references for official sources, to show this. We have indeed also written--and it is verifiable--that the Philippines has “among the highest power rates IN THE WORLD.”

Mangun’s account of his electricity bill shows how obtuse his computations are: “Last month it was P4,166.55 for a consumption of 396 kWh. So that is P10.52 per kWh. At the current peso-dollar exchange rate of P43.685, I am actually paying 24 US cents, not 18 cents. Before government taxes, the rate is 21 US cents. I am now confused.”

If Mangun were to compute for those consuming 400 kWh and up, he would find their distribution cost at P2.394/kWh (plus or minus the exchange rate and other factors) to his P1.723/kWh (or for those consuming 299 to 399 kWh).

Mangun continued: “I looked at rates from Hong Kong Electric… 18.6 US cents before taxes and other charges, the same as the combined Napocor and Meralco basic charges. That’s interesting.”

But this is what we downloaded from CLP Electric of Hong Kong: “CLP Power Hong Kong Limited (CLP) today announced that the Company is increasing its tariff by an average of 2.8 percent… With effect from 1 January 2011… which results in an average net tariff of 94.1 cents per unit of electricity…” or divided by 7.75 to get the US dollar equivalent, the Hong Kong rate is only at 12 US cents!

Mangun admits Vietnam's 6.5 US cents/kWh is four times lower than Philippine rates. His own data for Singapore’s 18.89 US cents/kWh is also much lower than his computation of his own electric bill in Manila at P10.52/kWh or 24 US cents. By now, the differences must be glaring to him.

Wikipedia put Philippine power rates last year at 28 US cents/kWh, and indeed it was when exchange rates were far more adverse against the peso. The Philippine Congress, during floor deliberations between Rep. Evardone and the ERC, put the Philippine rates at around 18 to 19 US cents/kWh--but that’s by the trick of averaging all the power rates of hundreds of electricity cooperatives and distributors all over the country, despite the fact that almost 70 percent of the country is served by Meralco, which charges the higher power rates of them all.

Mangun finally concludes, but again with a mischievous twist: “Are power rates high in the Philippines in comparison to many countries? Yes. Why? Because we generate most of the power from imported fuel.”

Good grief... Vietnam, Singapore, and Hong Kong don’t even have significant local crude, coal, or geothermal resources; but their power rates are still lower than the Philippines! What Mangun does not want to say is that privatization and the profiteering of foreign “investors” with Filipino dummies in the power sector are the very conditions that have kept on hiking power costs in this country. And we haven’t even yet factored in the “proportionality” of our power rates to the level of RP’s floundering economy. That’s sure to be another Waterloo for Mangun’s arguments--not to mention those of his like-minded ilk in Philippine mainstream media.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on the “ARMM Hocus PCOS?;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)