While we suffer

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/25/2007



Hogs and hogwash abounded at the Congress, while hundreds of thousands of electricity consumers got the shock of their lives in their July billing. The “automatic cost recovery” Meralco imposed, without the benefit of public scrutiny, was P 1.25/kwh and not just P 1/kwh. That’s 25% of last month’s billing. And Gloria has the shameless temerity to blow her horn in the SONA about proposing amendments to the EPIRA to bring down rates when she fast-tracked it after Edsa Dos through the lame duck 2001 Congress; yet, her “amendments” will aggravate the power rate spiral.

Gloria is proposing yet another fast tracking of the privatization of more generating plants and the transmission lines. One of the targets of Gloria for elimination is certainly the franchise requirement for any party that seeks to take over the Transco that earns P 18-B annually that has been saved from the privatization because no new franchise can yet be given. Gloria feigns to propose the removal of provisions that prevent “open access” of new power companies wanting to break Meralco’s monopoly, but either way power rates will continue to rise due to profit mongering of IPP’s.

Gloria is entrenching her hatchet men: Mikey Arroyo in the congressional energy committee, manic Miriam and huwad Ponce-Enrile in the senate energy committee, master-of-nothing Angelo Reyes in the Dept. of Energy and the jueteng-coddling police chief and frustrated editor-in-chief Lumibao in Napocor to replace Del Cuellar who tried resist Gloria and Meralco’s impostions. Gloria’s maneuvers are preparation for railroading the privatization of the genuinely lucrative state-owned Transco and the rest of Napocor generating plants (including hydro and geothermal plants).

The generation rate we are paying today for our electricity is P 5.67/kwh, from P 4.42/kwh. This new generate rate constitutes what used to be the entire amount we paid in our power bill; with the distribution and other costs Meralco and the EPIRA added it is over P 10.00/kwh already. Soon to come are approval of the petitions for transferring the “settlement of Napocor obligations” of Meralco to us power consumers amounting to P 20-B, the Universal Charge to cover $ 9.2-B or about P 500-B in power debts and stranded costs; we can imagine our power rate to climb to P 14/kwh.

In the water sector our suffering increases exponentially every year. I must correct my earlier figure on Manila Water’s rates, Maris of the Freedom from Debt Coalition updated me on the latest rate: P 25 to P 27/cu. m. for Manila Water Co. Inc. (MWCI) and P 35/cu. m. for Manilad/MWSS; compare that to P 1.25/ cu. m. we were informed by friends in Shanghai and P 7.65/cu. m. in Malaysia. We heard nothing about these onerous exactions on us in the SONA, nothing either from the so-called “opposition” there present. They’re all hogs, whining, out-“booring” each other.

The hogs clapped for Gloria’s hogwash over a hundred times. Mainstream media fawned while the nation yawned. One young trapo of the opposition wisecracked: “Gloria’s SONA was a only a good lesson in geography.” Congressman “Korap” brought cups of water to solons screaming on the floor eliciting chuckles. Cute? Witty? Irrelevant and flippant is what the suffering people thought of it. The Metro-Manila audience, most aware of the SONA, is most hungry today – the index increasing from 21% to 22% in the hunger index. The SONA was farcical, the 14th Congress.

We should not put inane politics over the real issues and suffering of our people. The struggle for justice in Estrada’s case is in hiatus. We now go back full time to issues that are fundamental to the people lest we join the political opposition in its irrelevance and be entrapped by Gloria and the mainstream media’s distractions. For example, Gloria says she will not stand in the way of others’ ambitions – that’s all it is about isn’t it. Self-serving ambition for all those trapos. But that’s not what the people want; well, that’s not for us. The people want justice and vision, things that brings hope.

Villar and ambitious young trapos have made their vacuous intentions clear. Instead of their antics let’s turn our attention to the consolidation the people and consumers’ burning issues, map out consumer protection unity and action against rapacious oligarchs of politics, power, water, telecommunications and taxes. We call on media conscientious about the power issues: DWWW’s Anne Bernardino, DWAD’s Ricky Li and our Sulo group, Business World writer Bernie Lopez, to escalate the campaign.

We are inviting the export sector, SME businessmen and manufacturers, labor groups, all crying out loud from the exorbitant utility prices to join the Nasecore, FDC, Kaakbay, Sulô and other people’s organization to re-start the struggle against exploitation of consumers and reduce public utility rates to half of what they are charging today – clearly achievable goals since we know other Asian countries have those reasonable rates. This is the only way we can restore the life of our people and the vibrancy of our national economy.

Gloria at the SONA pantomimed a grotesque gloating and issued taunts that smacked of psychosis – but its smacked of a mask to cover fears of a lame duck limping to her early end, growling and gnarling away the ghosts of those “extra-judicially” killed and tens of millions of hungry, suffering Filipinos.

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