Two fraudsters moving again

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/12/2005



When I read a letter-to-the-editor Sunday, clearly from a PR letter writing brigade, in several newspapers praising Meralco and Gloria for the alleged reduction in power rates I knew a major Lopez-Arroyo scam was in the footing again. I had the benefit of early inside information passed on to me by our NGO friends in the power sector watch text me something as early as Saturday:

“Meeting between NPC, DOE, PGMA and Meralco. They agreed to maximize dispatch of Meralco’s IPPs only for two weeks. Meralco IPPs appear to be cheaper than NPC plants only because of distortion in Transco tariffs. NPC needs to ask Transco to restructure and rationalize its tariffs. There will be a press conference tomorrow after lunch in Malacanang to announce rate reduction. Constraining NPC plants is not sustainable as estimated losses can be as high as P 600-M per month. This was agreed to be a short-term arrangement, i.e. two weeks only JUST FOR SHOW at the expense of NPC.”

My usual Sunday coffee buddies did not have the benefit of this information, so one of them sighed a sigh of relief after seeing the terrible situation the country is in and said: “At least, electricity rates will come down next week as announded…” Before he could finish his sentence I read them the text I received and explained that a repeat of Gloria and Meralco’s 2001 con game on the Filipino electricity consumers was apparently on the go again. For Gloria, it will be another PR gimmick as she did in 2001 claiming that with EPIRA passed rates would go down, what she did was to sweep under the rug the horrendous PPA.

Gloria conspired with the power companies like Meralco and the dozens of IPPs to hide the PPA under NPC which accumulated and doubled our rates when it started to be charged as “rate recovery” from 2002 onwards. That was cosmetics for the 2001 Edsa II power grab from the Estrada government, almost everyone was lulled into complacency except us – we filed cases in court against the EPIRA and the PPA, to no avail. To this day we are suffering Asia’s second highest power rates (next to opulent Japan) because of Gloria and the power pirate companies’ “fraudsterism”.

Nasecore (National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms) leader Pete Ilagan points out the “distortion of Transco tariffs” and calls for Napocor to demand Transco “restructure and rationalize” its rates to reflect the true rates. Transco tariffs on NPC are double what it charges Meralco, making Meralco IPP transmission rates appear cheaper. Also, NPC plants will be shut down for two weeks for so called “preventive maintenance” allowing Meralco to increase its off-take from its own IPPs to discounts of what is really a higher rate and increase the Lopez’s bottom line.

It will be too late again when the public discovers that another fraud has been foisted on them. Nasecore and yours truly, will not sit idly by; we have called for a press conference to be held Monday, September 12, 10a.m. at the Mama Rosa restaurant on Timog where Pete Ilagan will brief the media. We don’t expect much help from ABS-CBN but we do hope Channel 7, 5, and Net 25 do come and help us inform the public.

Meralco is taking advantage too of the total vulnerability of Gloria as lame duck power grabber to get this scam through at this time, and after the two weeks of fake power reductions to pretty up the Lopez IPP at the cost of P 300-M two week loss to Napocor the arrangement becomes permament. Napocor will lose P 600-M a month which the public will get to know about six months or a year later when they discover that this has been added to Napocor sovereign debts and transferred to taxpayers again. Manalo Lopez laughs all the way to the bank again, eh?

The fraudsters will get away again if we don’t stop them, and it’s not just the corporatocracy. There are the fraudsters in politics, like Ping Lacson whose post 2004 elections statements belittling FPJ’s protest against the cheating are clearly contradictory to his attempt to appear as a crusader against Gloria’s cheating and riding on the “Hello Garci” tapes storm. Let’s recall a few things about Lacson’s election behavior and let me quote a May 13, 2004 Manila Times report on Lacson calling “on his supporters not to join protests…and who had cautioned on airing charges of election fraud and cheating…”

There’s another by reporter Efren Danao on August 8, 2004 quoting Ping, “A candidate who cannot protect his votes deserves to lose” which was a belittling of FPJ’s protestations against the massive election fraud. There were many who warned against Lacson’s treachery but the CPP said it best on its media releases during that time, “Lacson’s treachery should forewarn all”. Lacson insisted on splitting the opposition FPJ vote, which was Gloria’s perfect cover for her cheating and fast track proclamation.

Now Lacson is suddenly a very active election fraud protester, crashing into opposition events even if uninvited.

Suddenly Lacson’s very “close” to FPJ’s struggle, even sitting beside the popular wife of the late opposition presidential candidate whom he so treacherously betrayed. Lacson, you’re a fraud. Mahiya ka!

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