EPIRA after 10 Years: Restructuring or consolidation

Butch Junia
6/27-7/3/2011



In the early talks on reform in the power industry, one of the buzzwords was restructuring, a more polite and civil way of talking about the dismantling of monopolies, or at least, holding them at bay.
The power or electricity industry before the reform law, for practical purposes, was vertically integrated under state oversight or authority.

The National Power Corp. was the sole generator, buyer and seller of electricity, the system operator and, also, the transmission company.

The Power of Choice
Electrification in the countryside was largely provided by the State-supported electric cooperatives, about 120 of them, while a handful of privately-owned distribution utilities served major urban centers.

Though smaller in numbers, the latter served a far bigger customer base, with Meralco, Visayan Electric, Cagayan Light and Davao Light, being the biggest among them.

The Electric Power Industry Reform Act or EPIRA ordained the restructuring of the industry by instituting competition or deregulating the generation sector, uncoupling or further subdividing traditional distribution service into wired-based which was inherently monopolistic and electricity supply and metering which, like generation, could also be deregulated and made competitive.

The overriding objective of EPIRA was to give consumers the power of choice, and to deregulate the two sectors – generation and electricity supply and metering – where the empowered consumers will have options on market-set instead of regulated rates.

A Virtual Monopoly
Critical to this reform was open access to transmission and retail competition.

On one end, government had to surrender its virtual monopoly in the generation sector, and was mandated by EPIRA itself to divest or sell its generation assets as a precondition to open access and retail competition.

This is practically complied with.

But because there have only been changes in ownership of plants with no new significant capacities coming in, the ideal situation for a competitive generation market still has to be approximated.


Privatization
In fact, there have been a number of concerns raised by consumers in the wake of the near-complete privatization of government generation assets.

First, with almost 90% of assets sold, the debts from power have hardly been reduced. The Power Sector Asset and Liabilities Management Corp. still has to make a good account of how the privatization of these assets was managed.

Second, privatization has not resulted in any drop in generation rates. Quite the contrary, rates have gone up with privatization. With supply deficits in the immediate and the medium-term, it would be unreasonable to expect any “market force” to exert pressure on the generation rates.

Ironically, while the calls for new capacity, principally from business and industry, grow more desperate, we have hardly attracted any new players who will risk investment in our electricity markets.

Emerging Giants
Inexplicably, not even our very high rates, the second –highest in the region, after Singapore, has drawn enough interest in the country.

Consumers complained that the privatization of government assets in power had not really led to the entry of new players, but only allowed the old oligarchs to consolidate their hold in the industry.

Emerging giants in generation, in addition to the Lopez group, are the Aboitizes, who now have under its wing as much as 2,246 MW, reportedly accounting for 15% generation of Luzon, 45% of Mindanao and the Visayas, and 14% nationwide.

The Lopez Group’s First Generation has established its presence outside Luzon, on its own account and through Greencore Geothermal, which won Tongonan and Palinpinon. San Miguel Power and DMCI Power are relatively new players, but they both represent very old interests. (See table)

              Status of Privatization Power Plants and Power Contracts.
                     Generation Assets Sold (As of 31 December 2010)

Power Plant	Winning Bidder	Winning Bid Price(US$)
Talomo Hydroelectric	Hydro Electric Corporation	$1.37 Million
Agusan Hydroelectric	First Generation Holdings	$1.53 Million
Barit Hydroelectric	Atty. Ramon I. Constancio	$0.48 Million
Cawayan Hydroelectric	Sorsogon II Electric Cooperative, Inc	$0.41 Million
Loboc Hydroelectric	Sta. Clara International Corporation	$1.42 Million
Pantabangan-Masiway Hydroelectric	First Gen Hydropower Corporation	$129 Million
Magat Hydroelectric	SN Aboitiz Power Corporation	$530 Million
Masinloc Coal-Fired Thermal	Masinloc-Power Partners Co. Ltd.	$930 Million
Ambuklao-Binga Hydroelectric Power Complex	SN Aboitiz Power Hydro Inc.	$325 Million
Tiwi-MakBan Geothermal	AP Renewables Inc.	$446.89 Million
Panay and Bohol Diesel	SPC Power Corporation	$5.86 Million
Amlan Hydroelectric	ICS Renewables Inc.	$0.23 Million
Batangas (Calaca) Coal-Fired Thermal	DMCI Holdings, Inc.	$361.71 Million
Power Barge 118	Therma Marine Inc.	$14 Million
Power Barge 117	Therma Mobile Inc.	$16 Million
Limay Combined-Cycle	San Miguel Energy Corporation	$13.5 Million
Palinpinon-Tongonan Geothermal	Green Core Geothermal Inc	$220 Million
Naga Land-Based Gas Turbine	SPC Power Corporation	$1.01 Million
Angat Hydro Electric	Korea Water Resources Development Corp.	$440.88 Million
BacMan Geothermal	Bac-Man Geothermal Inc.	$28.25 Million

Source: http://www.psalm.gov.ph/privatization.html

Major Issues Unresolved
Can it be truly said that EPIRA reformed and restructured the generation sector?

Not if we go by the rates we pay, and not until major issues are resolved, like the capacity fees charged by recently- privatized assets.

At the other end, government has come out with accreditation rules and guidelines, also market rules, for the Wholesale Aggregators and Retail Electricity Suppliers.

For the big customers in the contestable market, retail competition may come sooner.

Unfortunately, at the household level, there are serious reservations on the timeline for implementation.

For consumers, bringing the power of choice to the household is the threshold for any measurable success of EPIRA.

Inroad to Alleviate Poverty
Last week, as the President signed into law amendments to EPIRA that extended the lifeline rate for another 10 years, he said: “extending this lifeline rate allows those shackled by poverty to focus more of their resources into keeping themselves and their families alive, while also giving them access to electricity.”

In ceremonies leading to the signing and other related stories, this event is being held out as another measure of EPIRA’s success, or at least an inroad into alleviating poverty.

Under lifeline subsidy, households with consumption of 20 kwh and below get 100% discount, 21-50 kwh, 50%, 51-70 kwh, 35%, and, 71-100 kwh, 20%. There is no doubt that this help to such marginal households is significant and meaningful.

But if EPIRA is going to be judged by this program, then it is an utter failure, for unduly burdening the consumers at 101 kwh and above, because they are the ones who bear the full cost of this subsidy.


Who Bears the Cost?
Critics of the subsidy insist that government must bear the cost of this safety net, and not the hapless consumer already burdened by excessive power rates.

It was pointed out that a consumer using over 900 kwh paid P123.00 in lifeline subsidy.

A 140-kwh household paid P25.00. It was suggested that government take out the subsidy from the VAT on electricity, so consumers will not be paying VAT and lifeline subsidy. They, too, must manage their resources and focus on their needs.

Much must still be done in power reform, if it is to achieve its objective. But government will have to be very clear about the objective – is it real power for the consumer, or just realignments in the power centers.

All the good intentions

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/27-7/3/2011



On Mar. 10 this year, Inquirer columnist Ceres P. Doyo wrote in her “Human Face” corner a piece entitled, “From Nuremburg to The Hague.”

In it she praised the International Criminal Court (ICC) to high heavens and had only paeans for BSA III for signing the Rome Statute last Feb. 28, with another symbolic signing on Mar. 7, before the instrument was to be transmitted for ratification to the Senate which, at that time, had a meeting with ICC president and judge Sang-Hyun Song.

Doyo’s point is summed up by her ending: “(The) ICC is becoming the international community’s instrument of choice in the global fight against impunity.  ‘Only nine days ago the Security Council took an unprecedented, unanimous decision to refer the situation in Libya to the ICC,’ Song announced.

“‘Even all the non-state parties on the Council, such as China, Russia, the United States and India, voted in favor of the referral.’  This, he said, was a strong expression of the world community’s growing trust in the ICC.  Again, I say, no to impunity, yes to ICC.”

Who is lying …
Russia has since regretted its qualified abstention to the “No Fly Zone” resolution of the UN Security Council and issued this statement: “It is completely clear that the actions undertaken by the coalition are going far beyond the aims” of a UN Security Council resolution as NATO bombings have killed over 700 civilians (including the youngest Gaddafi sons and three grandchildren, and scores of Libyan rebels in friendly fire mishaps) while it debunked charges of Gaddafi atrocities against his own people based on Russian satellite monitoring.

Five months into the conflict, the issues also being raised now are the atrocities being committed by anti-Gaddafi forces together with NATO against many Libyans who have supported their nation’s sovereignty and leader.

Time has helped demonstrate who is lying and who is telling the truth, as NATO and its rebel puppets have failed to show evidence of those atrocities while their murders continue to be reported even in Western media.


The record of the ICC as a body purportedly organized to mete out transnational justice is a failed one.  From its handling of the Yugoslavian war crimes issues to its indictment of Sudan’s sitting President Omar Al-Bashir, the ICC has shown itself to be subservient to Western diktats, which are all discriminatory and devious to say the least.

Guilty!
To see this side of the picture, all we need is to read the voices of dissent to such ICC actions, such as Diana Johnstone in her Counterpunch article “What does the ICC stand for? – The Imperialist Crime Cover-up:” “When NATO bombs a country to unseat a leader, the targeted leader must be treated like a common criminal.

“His place cannot be at the negotiating table, but behind bars.

“An international indictment handily transforms NATO’s military aggression into a police action to arrest ‘an indicted war criminal’--an expression that evacuates the presumption of ‘innocent until proven guilty’… This is a familiar pattern.”

Johnstone continues, “On Mar. 24, 1999, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia in support of armed Albanian rebels in Kosovo.

“Two months later, in mid-May, as the bombing intensified against Serbia’s infrastructure, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Louise Arbour, issued an indictment against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity.

“All but one of the alleged ‘crimes against humanity’ took place in Kosovo during the chaos caused precisely by the NATO bombing.

“On Mar. 31, 2011, NATO began bombing Libya, and this time the International Criminal Court was even faster.  And the charges were even less substantial.  Ocampo said that there was evidence that Gaddafi personally ordered attacks on ‘innocent Libyan civilians.'  (Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the ICC in The Hague)

“In Libya as in the Kosovo war, the accusations are those made by armed rebels supported by NATO, with no discernable trace of independent neutral investigation.”

Kangaroo Court
Equally damning an indictment of the ICC comes from the African continent, as the late Olley Maruma of South Africa’s Southern Times wrote “ICC--Western Kangaroo Court” in Mar. 2009 about the ICC indictment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, ballyhooed as the first indictment ever against a sitting president.

He said: “In Africa, the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague is considered by many to be a Western kangaroo court set up to hound, jail and silence African and Third world leaders who refuse to submit to the grip of Western hegemony and domination.  The court's recent indictment of President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, has only provided more evidence to give credence to this view…”

The ICC indicted Al-Bashir on ten counts, including human rights abuses, murder and genocide in what is called the Second Sudanese Civil War pitting rebel forces in the South, the SPLA, against the government in the North.  Rebel arms, of course, came from the US which had its eye on Southern Sudan’s oil.

The ICC was heavily lambasted by the African Union over this indictment of one of its own, a sitting president of a member country, and, as a result, 30 African countries have started the move to withdraw from the ICC.
The objections of the African Union put the ICC in an embarrassing spot when put to the test in 2009, particularly during an Arab summit in Doha, as no country had taken any move to implement the ICC order.

Good intentions
Nicaraguan diplomat and revolutionary former Maryknoll priest, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, when he was president of the United Nations General Assembly, described the Al-Bashir indictment as “absurd and politically motivated."

D’Escoto Brockmann had a memorable advice to the ICC to gain credibility: “…it would be important to begin by indicting people from powerful nations, not to pick on the smaller ones.”

For sure, the ICC has never looked into massive civilian deaths from US and NATO bombings -- whether in Yugoslavia, Iraq or, now, in Libya.


Maybe the Filipina ex-convent girl slash columnist had only good intentions for supporting the ICC.

After all, who could be possibly against the idea of having an international body dispenses justice the world over?

However, when experience and evidence incontrovertibly show that a thing is not what it says or claims to be, one should be able to discern the truth.

When the ICC discriminates in its investigations and indictments; when it turns a blind eye to the massive murderous marauding of the Western powers, which according to Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann is their way of “pick(ing) on the smaller ones,” shouldn’t we all learn, expose, and condemn such malicious deception?

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Meralco railroad

CROSSINGS
Butch Junia
6/27-7/3/2011



Meralco was Manila Electric Railroad and Light Co. at the time when it operated the tranvia in old Manila in 1904, and it may well be back in the railroad business today, unless stopped by Mang Naro Lualhati.

On June 6, 2011, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) issued its Decision on Meralco’s application for annual rate increases over the next four years, a copy of which was received by Mang Naro on June 21, 2011. He gets those copies as Intervenor in that Meralco application.

While working on his action to junk ERC’s decision, he got Meralco’s Motion for Extension of Time dated June 13, 2011.

Way to Fleece Customers
Apparently, on the day ERC approved Meralco’s application, it also ordered Meralco to file its translation of the Maximum Average Price (MAP) into a Distribution Rate Structure.

Immediately, Mang Naro protested the railroading of Meralco’s rates, saying he would file a Motion for Reconsideration “especially because the correct MAP for 2012-2015 is P0.80 pkwh and not P1.5828 pkwh as approved by the Commission.”

For the benefit of those who may be hearing this ERC mumbo jumbo for the first time, these are all related to the so-called Performance Based Regulation (PBR) instituted by ERC to give the utilities like Meralco more ways to fleece their captive customers like us.

No Bearing
Under PBR, utilities file their Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) and Performance Incentive Scheme (PIS) over four years under a so-called a Regulatory Period.

Projected sales, forecasted expenses and capital outlays, returns and depreciation are become the bases for the rate.

The process is initiated by the ERC putting out an issue paper that tells the utility what it needs to tell ERC to get an increase or change in its rates. This will be the basis for the ARR/PIS.

From the ARR/PIS, ERC comes up with a Draft Determination on the application, although ERC is quite emphatic in saying that that determination has no bearing on the rate. This is subjected to comment and public consultation.

Subsequently, ERC arrives at a Final Determination, which will be the basis for the Distribution Rate Structure that will now show how much higher the residential customers consuming more than 400 kwh per month will pay, probably in the range well over P3.00/kwh, compared to large customers who may be paying P0.39/kwh, or even less.

Entirely the Basis
What ERC issued on June 6 is a Final Determination, and what Meralco will just do is to file the rate translation, which in turn will be the basis for the annual rate reset.

With the order for Meralco to file the rate translation even before the intervenors could comment on the Final Determination, it looks like we have a run-away train. But they will not get away with it that easy with Mang Naro weighing in with his motion for reconsideration.

I know how he arrived at the P0.80/kwh MAP, and ERC will not be able to just brush him aside this time.

On the Capital Expense claims of Meralco alone, the numbers are already P35 Billion apart for the whole regulatory period, over P9.0 Billion for the first year only.

He is also questioning the Regulatory Asset Base which, according to the Meralco witness, is only half-utilized but which is entirely the basis for the P19 Billion return on capital.

Even the 14.49% Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) is being challenged by Mang Naro, who says that should not be more than 12%.

Conflicts of Interest
Other than those questions from Mang Naro, I have also done my own read of the decision and determinations, and there are many things ERC will have to explain, like the valuation of assets and the failure of Meralco to sufficiently explain questioned items, yet these were allowed by ERC.

We also will want to know how ERC and/or Meralco picked their so-called rate reset experts and consultants.

Their costs must ruin into hundreds of millions, thus we must make sure that they have the credentials.

We also need look into possible conflicts of interest, because one or the other consultant or expert could have been working both sides of the track – with both the regulator and the regulated.

Shouldn’t we have any rules on this?

A Battle Royale
This promises to be a battle royale between Mang Naro, ERC and Meralco, and with more individuals and groups taking renewed interest in power issues, this is one fight to look forward to.

PBR has to be revisited and subjected to more rigorous review, and the Meralco 3rd Regulatory Period application is the perfect context for assessing what’s wrong with the industry and exploring the right remedies.

Mang Naro & the RH Bill
I yield the rest of this week’s Crossings to Mang Naro’s stand on the RH bill. I found out, to no surprise, that our stand on RH bill run along the same lines.

Here’s Mang Naro, who pointedly says: The RH Bill is Foolish.

“Economics does not agree with the proposition that overpopulation is the cause of poverty and that condoms and pills are the solution to hunger of the marginalized as propounded by the RH Bill.

Robert Malthus, an English Economist published in 1798 an Essay on the Principle of
Population also believed that “population constantly grows to outstrip the means of subsistence”- hence poverty would result from overpopulation.

Productivity, Education
But records of the wealthy nations led by the United States, France, England, Germany, China and Japan tell us that the poverty results not from overpopulation but underproductivity and the solution is not birth control and condoms and pills but mechanization or industrialization – in short, productivity.

Now we are certain of this because we saw that when these nations developed into capitalistic economies they push their productivities to yet unknown levels that even absorbed the idle hands in the farms, resulting in leveling of the distribution of wealth.

Even simple common sense shows us that poverty is not solved by condoms and pills but by increased productivity and better quality of life by education.

Yet, perhaps the strongest reason against the RH Bill to have the government to purchase the condoms and pills for distribution free to solve poverty is the undeniable truth that population grows at a geometric rate whereas birth control works at the much slower arithmetical rate. Hence, no amount of condom funding can ever solve poverty.

Geometric Growth
It is simply IMPOSSIBLE because population growth is GEOMETRIC and under-productivity is the cause of poverty and not overpopulation.

Illustration of birth control futility: geometric population growth – 1-2-4-8-16-32; arithmetical population growth – 1-2-3-4-5-6------

Thus, it is impossible to solve poverty with condoms/pills.

So why spend millions of pesos foolishly? Why throw money away and be the laughing stock of the world, distributing free condoms/pills instead of rice and jobs – and more? So, there you have Mang Naro, as passionate with RH as with Meralco.

Sorry. A couple of my lapses in last CROSSINGS: “several times over” came out several times “Ever”, somehow changing the tone of what I was saying. Uriel Borja is an “owner of a utility in Mindanao”, not Minadano.

• Email crsng_47@hotmail.com

A sad 1st birthday for an incorrigible haciendero

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
6/27-7/3/2011




Last week, on the eve of his Administration’s first Birthday, P-Noy displayed his penchant for shooting himself and his administration between the legs. He spoke at the Anniversary (113^th?) of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

As is his work and speaking style, he descended to petty “divide and conquer” tactics.

He publicly expressed his disappointment and displeasure at not only one, but three cabinet secretaries. He did not mention their names or departments.

He did mention three secretaries that he is pleased with, namely: the host, DPWH’s Rogelio “Babes” Singson; Department of Science and Technology’s Secretary Mario Montejo, and, of course, Department of Budget and Management’s Abad Patriarch, Florencio “Butch” Abad.

The extremely insecure P-Noy
A distant relative of the Aquinos explained to me why factions persist and continue to publicly exercise their turf-grabbing tantrums in the Aquino Administration.

Unlike his mother, Cory, who used to put her foot down on public displays of factionalism, the son encourages them.

The reason for this is his extreme case of insecurity.

The major causes of the President’s insecurity are:

1. His ancestors include World War II Japanese Collaborator,  Secretary of Interior Benigno Aquino, Sr. and turn-of-the-century (19^th to 20^th centuries) Gen. Antonio Luna’s special friend, Doňa Isidra Cojuangco.
2. His father and mother are Senator and Hero Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. and President Corazon “Cory” Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino.
3. Ninoy was incarcerated for more than eight years (1972-1980). He was charged, tried by a military court, convicted and sentenced to death by musketry. However, when his health deteriorated and he required a heart by-pass, he was allowed to go to the United States and lived in exile in Boston for three and a half years. When he came home on Sunday, August 21, 1983, he was assassinated at the Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino International Airport I).
4. Ninoy’s widow and Noynoy’s mother, Cory, became the symbolic leader of the opposition. She ran against Marcos in the Friday, February 7, Snap Elections. She won but was cheated. On Sunday. February 16, 1986, at the biggest ever Opposition Rally at the Luneta. She called for a Boycott of Crony Corporations. The February 22-25 People Power Revolution, known also as EDSA I, installed her as the President of a Revolutionary Government.  For the next six and a half years, she was the target of numerous coup attempts and plots. It was in the August 27, 1987 RAM coup that Noynoy was ambushed and wounded at J. P. Laurel St.
5. Cory was the daughter of the Cojuangcos, rice and sugar Landlords of Paniqui, Tarlac and Hacienda Luisita. However, she studied at the St. Scholastica’s College at the Grade and High School levels and went abroad for her college degree. Considering the connections, experience and wealth of the Aquino, Cojuangco and Sumulong Families, a very worthwhile investment they could have made was to send Noynoy for studies abroad instead of depending almost entirely on the Jesuits. It is virtually a matter of principle that children of royalty have to be weaned from their small circles of family and friends and sent to boarding schools.

What is there to celebrate?
On Thursday, June 30, the Second Aquino Administration will be harping on whatever reasons it can find to celebrate its first Anniversary or Birthday. Certainly, we can find many more reasons why it should not celebrate:

• The aborted take-off of the Centerpiece of the Anti-Corruption Campaign (The Truth Commission created by Executive Order # 1, was struck down by the Supreme Court.), allowed prosecution of the sins of the past to appear like the persecution of political enemies.
• The series of “urong-sulong” memorandum orders regarding government officials and employees who were neither CESO nor Career Civil Service, exposed the OJT (On-the-Job Training) and Student Council level and quality of P-Noy’s Cabinet and top officials.
• The revelation that the “Matuwid na Daan” and “Walang Mahirap pag Walang Korap!” advocate, P-Noy, tolerated or had even assigned a “Kabarilan” crony USec Rico Puno, to take over the Jueteng Payola, pulled the rug from under the high moral ground on which P-Noy initially stood.
• The August 23 Luneta Hostage Tragedy opened the Pandora ’s Box and exposed the can of worms that the Aquino Administration was made up of. In just his second month in office, P-Noy underwent his biggest and worst international embarrassment.
• P-Noy’s trip to the US was way below par. We cannot recall any accomplishment of substance. We remember P-Noy’s salivating for Boston Pizza, New York Hotdogs, and Sun Valley computer games. To cap his first foreign foray, the Philippine Flag was displayed inverted, signifying war, at one of his formal multilateral activities.
• The Aquino Administration was also below par in its handling of Overseas Filipino Workers caught in the civil strife in Africa and the Middle East.
• In the case of the three Filipinos executed in the PRC, Vice President Binay’s “Never Say Die!” endeared him to his countrymen while P-Noy was perceived as having folded up already.
• Thus, Binay beat P-Noy in the SWS and Pulse Asia survey ratings.
• Meanwhile DOTC Assistant Secretary for LTO Virginia Torres’ intervention in the internal intra-corporate conflict of Stradcom, triggered a management crisis in P-Noy’s Administration that will continue to play out. P-Noy’s coddling of his favorite KKK’s was exposed by House Minority Floor Leader Edcel Lagman.
• The resignation of DOTC Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus combined with a few more mistakes may lead to the start of erosion of business confidence. As in the case of last week’s public sideswipe against three Cabinet secretaries, P-Noy did a blind item on Ping de Jesus during his arrival (from Brunei) speech at the NAIA, the Friday night before the Monday, May 30, when Ping submitted his resignation.
• P-Noy’s visit last week to Cotabato was a super “kapalpakan”. His “Mother of All Sins of Omissions”. It degenerated into name calling between Malacaňang and the Cotabato City Mayor Japal Guiani.

Lame duck before one
Usually, a President may turn into a political lameduck towards the end of his term.

P-Noy is the opposite. He turned into a lame duck before his administration turned one year old.

As we pointed out last week, out of 15 Filipino Presidents, P-Noy belongs to a subgroup composed of General Emilio Aguinaldo, President Sergio Osmeňa, Sr., and Dr. Jose P Laurel.

What they hold in common is that they became political lame ducks early in their terms.

During a President’s term, his popularity, satisfaction and trust ratings as gleaned by poll surveys, may go up and down.

In P-Noy’s case, three Social Weather Stations (SWS) Quarterly Surveys in November, March and June have revealed a consistent drop in Net Satisfaction Ratings from 64 % to 51 % to 46 %.

War is popular
The same thing happened to President Joseph Estrada in his second year in office.

His survey ratings fell for three consecutive quarters, the third and fourth quarters of 1999 and the first quarter of 2000.

When this was happening, Dr. Felipe Miranda of Pulse Asia and formerly of SWS explained that based on the history of surveys of Filipino Presidents, such a trend could be fatal.

However, on April 29, 2000, armed clashes broke out between the AFP and the MILF.

Then, President Estrada decided to pursue an all out war versus the MILF. In three or four months, the AFP captured all the MILF camps.

An additional P1.4 billion was spent, which is roughly 1% of the total of the current National Budget.
The All-Out War had two by products.

First, President Estrada’s falling survey ratings suddenly went up.

Second, both Uncle Sam and the Catholic Church tried to persuade Erap to stop the War. He refused both requests. In turn the US, the Catholic Church, and Filipino Politicians and Activist conspired to oust him.

Perhaps, P-Noy learned a lesson from these. He has to pull up and get out of the dive in survey ratings. He has to make sure that a conspiracy does not reach a critical mass and succeed in ousting him.

Toothpick rattling
Thus, he engages in a little “toothpick” rattling against the People’ Republic of China.

He also goes out of his way in pleasing Uncle Sam.

A few Saturdays ago, he preferred to visit the US Aircraft Carrier Carl Vinson (that served as the funeral hearse of Osama Bin Laden) than receive boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.

However, the MILF that Erap defeated is a far cry from the People’s Republic of China. Maybe, our President is acting as though he is still a manager at Hacienda Luisita.

US: RP's worst 'best friend'

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/27/2011



A cacophony of voices ranting and raving about what to do in response to a rival claimant’s presence in certain areas of the South China Sea can be heard these days. If these big and loud words only came from credible voices, I would stand up and take heed. But knowing the empty record of many of these bellows of bellicosity, including that young trapo Joey Salceda, who issued that silly boycott call, or the man often dubbed “De Cash-tro” for his perceived chauvinism and underhanded “journalism,” patriotic and nationalist rhetoric just become jingoist and vacuous.

It’s also hard to take seriously what Malacañang’s spinmasters are doing of late, such as recasting their president as a patriot or renaming as the “West Philippine Sea” what has been marked in the World Atlas for thousands of years as the “South China Sea.” Such pompous acts can hardly qualify as “patriotic” given that Philippine officialdom has completely ignored the nation’s enslavement to the US-IMF in its growing annual debt service of P800 billion, which continues to bedevil our finances, economy, and military defense capabilities.

Unwilling to tackle such real fundamental issues as resolving the debilitating 50-year national debt trap, those bellicose voices have instead turned to grasping at one of the flimsiest straws — RP’s so-called “alliance” with the United States of America.

If our history with that North American country were to be the gauge for it, then the Philippines is absolutely doomed. The US committed its first international betrayal of the budding Philippine nation when it stole our forefathers’ victory against their 400-year colonial master Spain and established its own colonialism after killing a million Filipinos, including a hundred thousand or so in the island of Samar.

Then, in the Second World War, the US sacrificed the Philippines to concentrate on the European theater of war and then staged a dramatic return by destroying it. History, as everyone should know, cites Manila as the second most devastated city in the world in that war (beaten only by Warsaw).

This was what Thomas Huber in his The Battle of Manila said of the military option that could have avoided Manila’s devastation: “Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, commander of the US 6th Army, apparently believed that Manila was not a genuine center of gravity and planned to bypass it. Krueger, whose force landed on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf on Jan. 27 1945, also favored delaying any attack on Manila until he could build up his assets and consolidate his position on the Lingayen coast.”

Instead, the vainglorious American Centurion, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, prepared a victory parade that was frustrated by a Japanese naval commander with 17,000 men defying Yamashita’s order to evacuate Manila; for this or other reasons MacArthur ordered the attack on Manila, pulverizing 80 percent of its structures and killing 100,000 of its civilians. It was a retired Filipino Army general who reminded me of this historical fact, as a pointed reaction to all the media hype on the Philippines ’ reliance on US military support.

Another retired Air Force general stated how everybody is going about it the wrong way, by expecting the US to come to the Philippines’ aid in the event of a clash with China. What he said is that the Philippines must learn to go it alone if it really wants to stand up for its territorial interests. He kept repeating that we must act as “THE Philippines ,” i.e. as one nation preparing for its defense even by its lonesome. And that only means rebuilding our economy, our industrial infrastructure, and our defense capabilities.

When I proposed that the country should first rid itself of over 250 trapos in Congress who eat up all our budgets, everyone agreed. Indeed, how can we prepare ourselves when half the national resources are eaten up by debt service and the rest by corruption?

Alas, little prepared me for the shock — in light of what the retired army general and our history books say of the US’ military record — upon reading Teddy “Boy” Locsin’s opinion piece in BusinessMirror last June 23 entitled, “Bring back the US bases and their nukes, Part I.” But this is precisely the attitude that the retired Air Force general scoffed at — dependence on external support while eschewing the primordial task of building the nation, its identity, its national spirit, its sense of purpose, unity and sacrifice.

Given what we know already of the US military and political establishments’ propensity to sacrifice all others to protect its own, in a nuclear conflict scenario, it will deliberately set up the Philippines as a key ballistic magnet for China’s first strikes against any forward attack facilities of the US. It’s going to be a repeat of the destruction of Manila but on a national scale, with radioactive damage dwarfing the Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and Fukushima nuclear disasters combined.

We must take a position against involving foreign countries in our national struggles — the way belligerent Vietnam is doing or by way of Thailand’s use of tact and diplomacy (as it did in World War II and the Vietnam War).

If the Philippines can’t go it alone in standing up for its territorial sovereignty, then we’re a hopeless case. No external power will respect us enough to give us serious support except for opportunistic purposes, which will be useless and ultimately harmful to all Filipinos.

In the middle of the last century, some of our countrymen mistakenly thought of latching on to the Japanese imperial forces to eject US colonialism. In fact, Benigno Aquino III’s grandfather led the Kalibapi while his grandmother headed its women’s bureau. How ironic it is that the grandson now thinks he can use the country’s neocolonial ties to the US to rebuff China’s persistent territorial claims. He obviously doesn’t know that he wins nothing but only loses more for the nation in the end.

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Crushing Coconut Farmers’ Hopes”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

The 'Ruling Crass'

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

6/24/2011

This is the text I got from a disgusted observer of the Miriam-Jun Santiago 40th wedding anniversary bash: “I just saw footage of Brenda’s wedding anniversary at the Manila Hotel where politicians of every stripe as well as the more prominent oligarchs were present.  What a circus!  What a farce!  Nakakabaliw talaga.  Kulang na lang si Tabako para sabay-sabay bombahin ang mga kumag na yun ng makabansang pwersa.”  Then a follow up: “Well, the political bickering of those trapos and tycoons is as farcical as that madwoman’s marriage.”  One text from Davao came: “ MATINO Street in UP Village was renamed SANTIAGO Street , in honor of its illustrious alumna Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago; kung mapupunta ka ngayon doon, sabihin mo lang sa driver, ‘Sa Santiago St. po, yung dating Matino.’  He5x.”  As somebody else commented on Miriam’s gaudy red wedding dress, I thought to myself: Here we witness the “Ruling Crass” gather.

 

I can understand why the Santiago couple should be celebrating, and not just for staying married all these years as officially stated.  Both have been through tragic trials that one wonders if the successes they are celebrating are indeed such great things in light of certain tragic events.  The death of their youngest son by the barrel of a gun is still haunted by ugly rumors.  It never helped that the case was closed after the waiver of the requisite legal and forensic requirements, just like many other unsolved celebrity deaths in this country.  Then there is the case of the young secretary who was hurried off to the US after an alleged scandal in the private Quezon City offices of the couple, which reportedly cost a certain amount and a US visa for the dropping of charges.

 

Jun Santiago has been scandal-ridden for his alleged activities in the Bureau of Customs and in his favorite cockpits, as well as for a certain black Mercedes Benz believed to be illegally sequestered from somewhere.  Miriam Santiago, on the other hand, aside from her explosive temper and verbiage, is infamous for her promise to “jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta if Estrada gets removed from power,” which she later recanted by saying, “I lied,” followed with boisterous laughter.  She also gets into verbal jousts with just about everyone, including an even feistier lady, whom many say resembles her, Madame Dionisia Pacquiao, over the RH bill controversy.  She has written books which have never made any mark in intellectual circles, such as her book Christianity vs. Corruption, which is long on motherhood statements but completely devoid of political-economic analyses--a trademark of her vituperations on her every pet issue.  Her own original Ilonggo supporters, having seen her vacuity, have rejected her after the 1995 elections; but the couple’s perceived proficiency in working the Commission on Election’s dark alleys keeps her winning.

 

The Santiagos of Matino St. really have climbed the ladder of social status and opulence in this society which, if the Bureau of Internal Revenue really takes its “lifestyle checks” seriously, find little firm ground to stand on.  After cash stashed away from Miriam’s first failed presidential run in 1992 and then the various iterations of her Senate pork barrel, the Santiagos have done very well while their supposed constituencies have gotten poorer and poorer.  But this isn’t any different from what other politicians, most of whom were invited to the celebration, have notched up as a record: Getting rich as the nation sinks deeper into poverty; blabbering endlessly in their respective legislative halls and passing oppressive laws such as the Electric Power Industry R(d)eform Act (Epira), eVAT, as well as onerous Build-Operate-Transfer measures; then hobnob with the oligarchs for whom they pass these to legalize their plunder; and then party even more while the middle classes and the masses, who suffer deepening penury, watch with stupefaction.

 

There’s also the picture of this oligarch potentate in his wheelchair congratulating the couple, grinning and smiling (perhaps in the knowledge that a Supreme Court decision affirming his ownership of the P100-billion coconut levy shares in San Miguel Corp. was in the offing?).  How such huge wealth from the sweat and blood of millions of Filipino farmers can redound to the interest of just one man, I wonder now.

 

The whole caboodle of the “ruling personalities” at the wedding bash clearly has no shortage of such ironies.  There they were all together there--economic and political oligarchs alike.  Even the top kleptocrat in Philippine history, Gloria Arroyo, was rubbing elbows with her ilk and reveling in the splendor as a member of the ruling class.

 

Yet, all of them are mere unproductive “rentiers,” part of a “Ruling Crass” that uses power and position to amass all they can, possessing only such values as greed, narcissism, and more greed.  They haven’t even for a minute thought about where all the wealth they wallow in come from.

 

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There will never be enough of any one’s greed.  There will always be enough for everyone’s needs.”  If this country continues to nosedive into poverty, it is simply because this “Ruling Crass” prevails.  Witnessing such a gathering of the greedy, anti-social, insensitive, pathological, hedonistically rich and infamous members of the socio-economic parasite class without expressing disgust might be mistaken for vicarious enjoyment, if not open endorsement.  Thanks to those who voiced their disdain for this display of ultimate social phoniness.  There is hope after all.

 

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Crushing 24 million coconut farmers’ dependents”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

The neocons' rag

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/20-26/2011



The peace dividend from the end of the Cold War in 1991 turned into dust when the United States proceeded posthaste to assimilate fallen eastern Soviet states into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) while plotting the “Balkanization” of Yugoslavia (which it later bombed in 1999 to break up into seven new states).

As these were taking place, the US deployed missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic as a so-called defense against “rogue states” such as Iran. Russia, of course, along with every credible analyst out there, considered that a joke – at Russia’s expense.

In succeeding years, the US and NATO then launched wars in the other half of the globe--in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Africa’s Libya as well as in the Middle East’s Yemen (the last two coming after their neocolonial coup in Côte d’Ivoire).

Single Biggest Threat
It is to the interest of every citizen of this Internet-connected world to understand that the US and NATO, or the Western alliance, is the single biggest threat to hopes of world peace.

And behind this 21st Century imperialist-hegemonic aggression is the neoconservative (neocon) cabal starring the likes of Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, et al -- a cabal we should all expose.

Our previous column discussed the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Op-Ed pages as an oligarchic tool for consistently and systematically riveting readers with motherhood issues of human rights, liberal democracy, and Marcos-Erap demonization while omitting reports and analyses of massive plunder by the oligarchy through bloodthirsty profiteering on the basic needs of citizen-consumers such as electricity, water, public transport (MRT/LRT), tollways, telecommunications, etc.

We questioned the Inquirer’s June 9 story on the Energy Regulatory Commission and Meralco’s disinformation, claiming that the 2011 PBR (Performance Based Regulation) power rates have been reduced when these are actually double the original.

We also assailed that paper’s “star” columnists (including an ex-National Economic Development Authority head) for dwelling on the more esoteric motherhood issues than zeroing in on, say, the power price gouging that plagues our nation’s very survival.

Thumbprints Galore
There are important connections to point out here: The Philippine oligarchy is a surrogate of the international neocon cabal whereby the local mainstream media, fed and fueled by the oligarchy’s corporate advertising budgets, carries out the neocon agenda by running “weapons of mass distraction” to throw off people’s attention from the anti-people, anti-democratic and plundering political-economic campaigns of such neocon impositions or designs as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the “War on Terror,” as well as innumerable “civil society” NGO fronts, etc.

The local oligarchy is to the US-NATO neocons today what the Principalia was to the Spanish Crown in Philippine history.

In turn, today’s local mainstream media is filled with the same Ilustrados of yore, articulating the ideology of their colonial ruler while totally bereft of the bravery and rebellious streak of the masses’ forebears, the Indios Bravos.

We thus highlight two guest columns featured in the Inquirer that project the neocon agenda:

First is Patrick Pierce’s “President Aquino should lead move to probe Burma,” where the author writes, “the Philippines, through its president, is in a unique position to demonstrate its commitment to human rights…” Wouldn’t the Philippines and its media do mankind better by asking why US drones are bombing and killing Afghan civilians (with over 700 dead in 2009 alone, and with only 14 confirmed Talibans among them) and how many more innocents have been killed in Libya, Yemen, and Pakistan?

The Inquirer cites Pierce as someone who “heads the International Center for Transitional Justice, Burma Program.”

But what would have added illumination to his views is the background and character of his institution and its funding sources, which I easily found on the Web but are not being disclosed by the Inquirer for good reason. From the Ford Foundation (which funded ICTJ’s inception), to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, to the Carnegie Corp. of New York, to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Andrus Family Fund, one will find neocon thumbprints galore.

Global Domination
Pierce is badgering BSA III to call “on the UN to establish a commission of inquiry into human-rights violations in Burma,” stressing that he (BSA III) “will not only live up to the democratic legacy of his parents but to the human rights commitments of the country that gave People Power its name.”

The fact is BSA III hasn’t even started to make headway on the hundreds of “extra-judicial killings” and murders of Filipino journalists (among the highest in the world; No. 3 in the Impunity Index according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists) or in the Hacienda Luisita Massacre victims’ cases.

So, isn’t that call silly, to say the least?

But why do the Western neocons like to have propaganda ammunition against one of the Asian states unwilling to go along with their hegemony?

As Myanmar is at the underbelly of China, the major strategic target of the neocons is to restore their global domination, which the West had before the second part of the 20th Century.

Their own Destiny
The second featured Inquirer article under our watch is from Radek Sikorski, Polish politician and Director of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)’s New Atlantic Initiative.

For those not in the know, AEI is also at the core of the neocon networks. Moreover, Sikorksi writes for Project Syndicate, an international newspaper syndication distributing commentaries, analyses or opinion pieces by “experts.”

Among the funders of Project Syndicate is the Open Society Foundation of multi-billionaire financial and currency predator-speculator George Soros.

Sikorski’s “The frontline of democracy” dishes advice to “new democracies” (i.e. countries falling into neocon control): “Peoples in transition from authoritarian rule--peaceful in Poland in 1989, bloody in Libya today -- grapple with decisions that determine their fate for decades.

How should the former regime’s worst wrongdoers and security police, with their insidious archives, be treated?”

He then continues, “Today, across North Africa, millions of people are demanding a voice in their own destiny.”

Intelligent Readers
But in Libya, the African Union led by South African president Jacob Zuma has already visited Muammar Gaddafi under the atmosphere of NATO bombardment to bring a ceasefire proposal formulated by the 53 African states.

Given that this and other similar proposals have been repeatedly brushed aside by the US and NATO, just what is Sikorski talking about?

Can’t he admit that his employers are the ones who are suppressing the voice of Africa, which is actually supportive of Gaddafi and the Libyan peoples’ right to self-determination?

The US and NATO are citing the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s appeal as justification for its “No Fly Zone” on Libya, which has turned out to be nothing but a bombing campaign against the people of Tripoli. Sikorski then looks at the “rebels” in Benghazi and concludes, “…there is a fair chance that Libya’s emerging leaders will be good”-- well, good enough to reverse Gaddafi’s nationalism and Pan-Africanism, so as to revert Libya and the whole of Africa back to the old colonial days, I should add.

In all, I don’t expect the Inquirer, being an Establishment newspaper, to be anything other than what it is today -- the oligarchy and the global neocons’ rag.

I just think more Filipino members of the intelligentsia, especially the young, should be aware of this whenever they flip through the paper’s expensive ad-laden pages. (We’ll study Ceres Doyo’s views on the International Criminal Court and Rina Jimenez-David’s praise release for NGOs next).

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “GSIS Union’s Victory vs. Winston’s Outrages”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Prestidigitation

CROSSINGS
Butch Junia
6/20-26/2011



Prestidigitation is sleight of hand, or the technique used by a magician to manipulate objects and deceive or mislead his audience. In magic, this is enchanting amusement.

Applied to our power rates, it is a shocker.

Inevitably, that is the feeling I get as I read through the latest order of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approving Meralco’s Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) and Performance Incentive Scheme (PIS) for Regulatory Years (RY) 2012 to 2015, which will actually start in two weeks for the first RY, from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

I have read this order several times ever since I got hold of it from Mang Naro Lualhati last Wednesday, and despite the fact that I more than less expected ERC to take the side of the utility, I did not expect the consumer rout to be as thorough and as devastating.

So designed
Not a single consumer/oppositor/intervenor concern was ruled favorably. Meralco got its way with ERC, and some.

In the opening gambits alone, the consumers were already at the short end. The ERC has devised rules that are so complicated and virtually impossible to comply with by even the most resolute consumers that I can safely say this is designed to wear down and deter all opposition.

To begin with, one has to be an “Intervenor” to interrogate, challenge, question and cross-examine Meralco and its witnesses. An “Oppositor”, in the ERC’s rules, can only listen, look and gnash his teeth because he can neither speak to nor confront the witnesses, or challenge their evidence and testimony.

What are the two requirements to qualify as intervenor? First is the Petition in Intervention, strictly in the form required by ERC, and second, it must be filed within the time prescribed under ERC’s rules.

What consumers pay for
Mind you, Meralco has a whole battery of lawyers we pay for, foreign consultants we pay for, utility experts we pay for, economists and engineers we pay for, and an army of other staff and gophers, we also pay for.

No wonder they can put together all the documents required for their application, and develop all those formulas and graphs and tables and charts, except of course for the specific information that consumers require.

Based on their present application, Meralco is charging us P58 Million for their so-called Regulatory Reset Expert for 2012, a foreigner. By 2015, this will be P70.1 Million. Meralco’s operating expense for 2012, a good part of it going to personal services is P13 Billion.

For the consumers, in addition to our contribution to Meralco’s rate reset kitty, we pay for everything we need from our pockets – photocopy, filings, transpo, parking, etc.

Intervenors excluded
In the same application, a total of P432,171,000 will be charged to us by Meralco for Regulatory Liaison during the four-year period.

What exactly is this Regulatory Liaison that will cost close to one-half billion pesos? We hope ERC, as the regulator, will clarify this.

Among those excluded from the intervenors was Uriel Borja, an expert in the electricity business as owner of a utility in Minadano, the Nagkakaisang Alyansa ng Pilipinong Makabayan, the Kilusang Makabayang Ekonomiya, and the Marginalized Pauper Residents of San Pedro, Laguna, supposedly for their failure to file their Petition on time.

In fact, they also tried to exclude Mang Naro Lualhati, but he already filed a Manifestation on July 1, 2010, or barely 12 days after Meralco’s application was filed, only it was not in the Petition form.

Without legal basis
Incidentally, I checked ERC’s order itself and plotted the timeline for the filing of intervention. The ERC, as it turns out, may have violated its own Order.

Meralco filed its application on June 18, 2010. On June 23, 2010, ERC issued an order for the application to be published in two successive weeks in two newspapers, provided the last publication shall not be less than 10 days before the first hearing.

The first hearing was set on July 14, 2010, and it was in fact in that hearing where Meralco moved, duly granted by ERC, to declare a general default, thus Borja et al were subsequently and consistently denied intervenor status.

If we plot this order by the calendar, the 2nd week from the June 23 order is July 7, 2010, and the 10th day from last publication is July 17, 2010, not July 14, the day at which ERC declared the rest of the world in default as far as the Meralco application is concerned.

When the order said two successive weeks, the entire 14-day period must be allowed to run, before we count the 10-day period to the hearing. This is material because the public has to be given ample time to know, assess and oppose the application.

Therefore, all actions and orders of ERC, especially in regard to the petitioners for intervention, were without legal basis being in violation of its own order.

Pati ba naman sa timeline na ito, magiging biktima pa tayo ng prestidigitation?

Unmitigated gall!
Last week, the ERC through a Director Saturnino Juan announced this new rate order dated June 6, 2 011, signed by Chairman Zenaida Cruz-Ducut and Commissioners Rauf Tan, Maria Teresa Castaneda and Jose Reyes, with Alejandro Barin on-leave.

Highlighted in Juan’s announcement is the lower rate approved by ERC at P1.58 pkwh, lower than what Meralco applied for (P1.70 pkwh) and the current rate (P1.6464 pkwh) charged by Meralco.

Without batting an eyelash, ERC’s Juan lectures us that we are now beginning to feel the initial benefits of efficiencies that come from Performance Based Regulation or PBR, the Parusa sa Bayan Rates.

My favorite editorial writer, FT Ocampo, would have the perfect retort to Juan, or at least the apt description of his heroic effort to make his ERC look good – “The unmitigated gall!”

I cannot think of any other way to regard this attempt to dress up PBR as efficiency-driven.

Exemplars of efficiency
In a group discussion I attended last week, one of the panelists noted that after PBR had driven our rates to the roof, by more than P1/kwh, we can hardly be impressed when ERC brings down that rate by six centavos, or P0.06. She went as far as to say that the PBR we adopted is not suited for us, and the so-called regulators may not fully understand what PBR is or should be.

But this is where sleight of hand comes in, and superior negotiating skills are even handier.

Sabi nga po ni Mang Naro, tinaasan nila ang hinihingi sa application, kunyari magkakaroon ng review, kaya lang ang ibibigay na rate, sobra pa sa pangangailangan ng Meralco.

Under the P1.58 pkwh Maximum Average Price, what has actually been granted to Meralco?

Meralco is given an Operating Expense of P13.9 B; Capital Expense, P10 B; Return on Capital, P19.1 B; Return of Capital, P4.7 B; Depreciation, P5.2 B.

Meralco is also credited with a Regulatory Asset Base of P126 B, which will be subject to recovery based on Weighted Average Cost of Capital of 14.97%, higher than the 12% rate used under Return on Rate Base for utilities like Meralco.

Just as noteworthy, in the same breath that ERC said rates should go down from P1.6464 pkwh to P1.58 pkwh as of July 1, 2011, it has given

Meralco P24.1 B in “under recoveries” for the 2nd regulatory period, and for the coming year, an initial P6.5 B will be recovered, the balance to be spread over the last three years of the 3rd regulatory period.

Let us remind Juan that under RORB, Meralco’s distribution rate was P0.76 pkwh; under rate unbundling, it was P0.90 pkwh. Under PBR, it soared to P1.27 pkwh, P1.46 pkwh, to P1.6464 pkwh.

Meralco’s profits: P2.7 B in 2008; P6 B in 2009; P12 B in 2010, to improve even further in 2011, according to Manuel Pangilinan.

Aren’t they exemplars of efficiency, ERC and Meralco?

Very damaging admission
Incidentally, in the ERC decision, there is reference in page 11 to Mang Naro’s interrogation of Michael Emmerton, Principal Consultant of PB Associates who assisted Asian Appraisal Co. Inc. in the valuation of Meralco’s assets. The decision said: “NASECORE, Mr. Lualhati, and FOVA cross-examined the said witness.”

I was in that particular hearing, and it is a matter of record that under questioning by Mang Naro, Emmerton confirmed that the P126 B asset base of Meralco is only 50% utilized.

That very damaging admission was obviously not taken into account by ERC in its final determination, in fact giving Meralco an additional P10 B capital expense, on top of and despite the P63 B assets that Meralco does not utilize.

Given the gauche and hamfisted way this order has been arrived at, I will reconsider my lead and title for this column. There is nothing clever at all in this attempt at misdirection, to make it a sleight of hand or prestidigitation.

Even magicians will not want to be in this kind of company.

• Email crsng_47@hotmail.com

What do we de with a problem like P-Noy?

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
6/20-26/2011



Next week, the Aquino Administration will turn one year old, so young and yet so lame a duck already. Out of our 15 Philippine Presidents, he can only be compared in terms of “lameduckness” with General Emilio Aguinaldo, Dr. Jose P. Laurel and Sergio Osmeňa, Sr.

That is the case, even if like 10 of the 11 other Presidents, P-Noy had undergone a national campaign and an election, won it (whether fairly or unfairly, but certainly with a very convincing landslide) and been constitutionally proclaimed.

His mother, Cory Aquino, was proclaimed on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1986, by extra-constitutional People Power and a breakaway military, police and bureaucracy.

GMA was proclaimed on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2001 by a smaller and more conspiratorial People Power, a military and police withdrawal of support from her predecessor and a confused Supreme Court Chief Justice.

Later on, his Supreme Court would bulldoze jurisprudence and constitutionality in order to cloak a de facto situation with a veneer of de jure contrived on the theory of a constructive resignation.
She was again proclaimed under the cover of darkness in June of 2004 by a very “Noted” Congress acting as the National Board of Canvassers.

The Brave, the Wily, and the Lame Duck
None of the 10 constitutionally-proclaimed Presidents turned into lame ducks within a year of their assuming office.

Even his mother, Cory, was not reduced into a lame duck by so many coup rumors, plots and actual attempts.

If at all appearing like a duck, she looked like a very brave veteran duck.

When, in June of 2005,  NBI official Sammy Ong, Jr. brought out the “Hello Garci” tape at a press conference at the Metro Club, GMA did appear to be turning into a lame duck but for a month only.

Even after the Friday, July 8, resignation of the Hyatt Ten and the call for GMA’s resignation by Cory Aquino, the Drilon wing of the Liberal Party, the Makati Business Club, and the Finex.
GMA survived and turned into the wily duck.

And consider that this was after four and a half years in office, after breaking her December 30, 2002 promise not to run for re-election and after stealing the Presidency a second time.

On the other hand, P-Noy is as lame a duck after just a year in office as three Philippine Presidents who did not undergo national Presidential campaigns and elections. The three unelected Presidents became lame ducks for very different and difficult reasons.

Dependent on the US
A year after the proclamation of independence at Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898, hostilities had already broken out between Aguinaldo’s Revolutionary Army and the superior American Expeditionary Force.

The American forces held Manila and were clearing the neighboring provinces. Aguinaldo had started his retreat that started in Cavite and would end in Palanan, Isabela.

President Manuel L Quezon and Vice President Sergio Osmeňa were heading a Philippine Commonwealth government in exile in Washington from 1942-1945.

Because of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, they were already beyond their second four-year term on a holdover capacity.

After the death of Quezon late in the war, Osmeňa succeeded him. He was literally a lameduck President because he did not have any territory. Neither did he have much of a government. He was completely dependent on the US.


A Puppet Gov’t
In the occupied Philippines, the Japanese established a Puppet Government with Dr. Jose P. Laurel (a Justice of the Supreme Court) as President and Benigno Aquino, Sr. (a Senator) as Secretary of the Interior.

They had neither been elected nor proclaimed by the Filipino people.

They were appointed by the Japanese Government and tolerated (up to the present) by the Filipino People.

They could be replaced anytime.

After liberation, they were tried by a People’s Court but because of the forgiving nature of the Filipino, they were let off with better treatment then they deserved.

After the liberation of the Philippines, Osmeňa’s Presidency became more real.

However, his political future was dim because Uncle Sam did not consider him a desirable puppet.

The US wanted to maintain economic parity rights beyond independence. They also wanted to maintain their bases and have a Mutual Defense Treaty with an “Independent “ Philippines.
For these reasons, they needed somebody like Manuel Roxas.

Manuel Roxas
In the first elections after the war, Roxas, with the help of the Americans defeated Osmeňa.
Roxas would give the Americans everything they wanted. To do this, they would prevent six elected Congressmen of the Democratic Alliance (allied with the Nacionalista Party) from seating in the House of Representatives. These were done in order to get the two thirds vote needed to amend the Constitution with the Parity Rights Provision.

Both Presidents Marcos and Estrada were ousted because they were no longer useful to the Americans, They had implemented policies that were inimical to US interests.

In Erap’s case, he ignored or refused to accommodate President William “Bill” Clinton’s letter asking for a stop to the All-Out War against the MILF.

In P-Noy’s case, he seems to have developed into a Poster boy for US interests.

Last month, he preferred to tour the US Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Carl Vinson.

As a broadsheet headline called it, the Carl Vinson was the funeral hearse used to bury Osama Bin Laden in the Arabian Sea.

Toothpick Rattling
This month, he engaged in “toothpick” rattling versus the People’s Republic of China. This served as the antecedent for the US Ambassador to state that the US is with the Philippines right after saying that the US would not get involved in the territorial disputes in the China Sea.
In regard to the AFP, P-Noy has been playing around with a shopping wish list.

He has shown a definite bias in favour of waking up early for military activities and occasions (Except for his failure to show up at a NDRRMC meeting way back in September). As far as the PNP is concerned, as a rule it tends to be loyal to the incumbent or rebel only in the footsteps of the AFP.

The fact, that P-Noy got a bigger than five million vote margin over his closest rival, Erap is no assurance that his six-year term may not be cut short.

President Estrada also had such a margin over a much less popular (than him) closest rival, Speaker Joe de Venecia. Erap was ousted by a conspiracy after just two and a half years.

It took 21 years to oust Marcos.

A Flock of Lame Ducks
On the other hand, we failed to oust GMA in nine and a half years of trying.

In this regard, survey results may be better than election mandates in determining whether a President can be ousted or not.

In the meanwhile, we also have VP Binay’s prayers to contend with. He keeps on praying that P-Noy does not fall before noon of June 30, 2012. That is the difference between his being allowed to run for reelection or not in 2016.

As far as going through the motions of destabilizing P-Noy, he and his cabal of Ka’s are doing it better than any of us could.

The best thing we could do is to prepare for the mid-term national elections in 2013.

If we can make more non Liberal senatorial candidates win, we can make P-Noy’s lame duck status permanent and fatal.

At the same time, we also render his party into a flock of lame ducks.

Considering that they are the incumbent administration, this may not be an easy thing to do. However, it is very doable and worth the time and effort.

Very Crowded 2013
In 2013, there may be six re-electionist Senators (Alan Peter Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Greg Honasan, Loren Legarda. Sonny Trillanes, and the protested Migs Zubiri. The seventh would have been P-Noy.). Five Senators (Edgardo Angara, Joker Arroyo, Ping Lacson, Kiko Pangilinan and Manny Villar) will retire.

Up to five Balikbayans (Pong Biazon, Dick Gordon, Jamby Madrigal, Nene Pimentel and Mar Roxas) may return.

Several, maybe seven, wives and children of past or present Presidents, Vice Presidents or Senators may run too. These may be Cong Angara. Cong Abigail Binay, Cong J V Eercito, Cong Jackie Enrile. Sharon Cuneta Pangilinan, “cheated” 2007 Senatorial Candidate Atty. Koko Pimentel, Cong Cynthia Villar.

Then, we even have two super stars, Kris Aquino and Willie Revillame. If he were not under-age, Manny Pacquiao would run for Senator or Vice President.

Overall, it will be a very crowded race.

Normally, such a situation would increase the advantages for the Administration Party or Slate. However, this may be very different.

At the rate P-Noy is going down, he might not be able to fill up a 12-man slate. His party may even have to abandon him to save whatever political assets they may hold.

EPIRA after 10 Years: SC order overturned under EPIRA (Part 2)

Butch Junia
6/20-26/2011



"Rate regulation is the art of reaching a result that is good for the public utility and is best for the public. Such rates must not be so low as to be confiscatory, or too high as to be oppressive."

In clear and concise language, then Associate Justice Reynato Puno in his landmark decision on the Meralco overcharges that led to the refund order in November, 2002, set for the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) the tone for rate regulation. And for the utility and its captive customers what, in effect, should be their reasonable expectations?

Public interest over profit?
Coming barely two years after the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), Justice Puno’s ponencia was a judicial affirmation of the consumer rights and interests promised by EPIRA, principal of which was consumer choice in power.

EPIRA was supposed to resolve Napocor’s debt problems and create the policy environment that would draw investments in generation.

More importantly, it would give consumers down to the household level the power of choice – on his electricity supply. In other words, the reform law promised liberation from the stranglehold of his distribution utility under open access and retail competition.

Ten years after EPIRA, consumers do not have the power of choice and there is no retail competition.

Justice Puno, with characteristic eloquence, said in his decision: “In third world countries like the Philippines, equal justice will have a synthetic ring unless the economic rights of the people, especially the poor, are protected with the same resoluteness as their right to liberty. ... In configuring the contours of this economic right to a basic necessity of life, the Court shall define the limits of the power of respondent MERALCO, a giant public utility and a monopoly, to charge our people for their electric consumption. The question is: should public interest prevail over profits?”

A fighting chance
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mang Naro and his group, disallowing Meralco’s tax claim, ordering a refund that reached almost P30 B and setting the criteria for expenses that can be charged to customers and assets that would be recoverable.

It was a landmark decision for consumers as it immediately reversed the old practice of utilities incurring exorbitant costs and simply charging everything to the captive customers without a by your leave, under the old RORB.

Under this decision, operating expense to be recoverable “should be a requisite of or necessary in the operation of a utility, recurring, and that it redounds to the service or benefit of consumers.”

With the clear criteria for cost recovery and very specific exclusions like the corporate income tax that ran into billions, consumers had a fighting chance to get a fair and reasonable rate under Return on Rate Base or RORB.

17-word verdict
But the consumer euphoria would be short-lived.

Under Sec. 43 (f) of EPIRA, Functions of ERC, an innocent sounding line in a sea of other related functions reads as follows: “The ERC may adopt alternative forms of internationally-accepted rate-setting methodology as it may deem appropriate.”

Those 17 words, surely put in there to give the regulators a measure of flexibility, have instead become the utilities’ weapon and means for raising their rates to unprecedented highs, and their profitability to unparalleled levels.

From those 17 words, the Energy Regulatory Commission has legitimized a revenue-fixing process as substitute for ratesetting, and has substituted cost projections for the cost recovery, which means captive customers , now provide, up front, all the costs for the utility – capital equipment, operating expense, system loss, depreciation, working capital, return on capital, return of capital, taxes, ad nauseam.

From those 17 words Performance Based Regulation or PBR sprang into life, to turn the rate-setting horizon inside-out. Through PBR, a Supreme Court decision, a landmark decision for consumers at that, was effectively overturned and reversed by a regulatory tribunal.


Stubborn stance
Justice Puno, in disallowing corporate income tax as recoverable from consumers, said: “income tax should be borne by the taxpayer alone as they are payments made inexchange for benefits received by the taxpayer from the State.”
Subsequently, in denying Meralco’s Motion for Reconsideration, Justice Puno would emphatically say: “we reject Meralco’s insistence that the non-inclusion of income tax payments as a legitimate operating expense will deny public utilities a fair return of their investment. This stubborn stance is belied by the report submitted by the COA.” (Underscoring mine).

Surprisingly, ERC has included corporate income tax as one of the so-called building blocks for the revenue requirements under PBR, making it a recoverable cost, contrary to the Court’s decision.

Meralco actually claims it did not charge the corporate income tax, but ERC stubbornly keeps it as a building block, in defiance of the SC decision.

It is high time that we revisit EPIRA and clip that ERC function under Sec. 43 (f) that gave rise to PBR and its very high rates, making ours the second most expensive electricity in the region, after Singapore.

Amend EPIRA, consumers demand, to abolish PBR.

(More on EPIRA next issue.)

RP: A 'Junrey Balawing' forever?

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/20/2011



A mainstream daily came out with the headline, “PH flexes naval muscle,” with a huge photo of the BRP Humabon, a vintage World War II destroyer escort/frigate that is the only warship of the Philippine Navy. Why it decided to put out such a headline projecting the country’s total incapacity to present a credible naval deterrence is beyond me. Was it for self-ridicule (which it did rather successfully)? Or was it to provoke better armed foreign navies to “pick” on us?

As former US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld said of his country’s position in the world when he quit his post in 2006, “Today, it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative, but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative as well.”

Thus, if you are a Filipino like Junrey Balawing, 23.5 inches in height, adjudged by the Guinness World Records as the shortest living man in the world, and acting menacing by flexing your pea-sized muscle, the neighborhood bully may well be provoked to beat the crap out of you even just for laughs.

Worse, if that pea-sized muscle is tied to a pea-sized brain, as what TV news anchor Noli de Castro exhibited on air a few days ago, then we know we have a really dumbed-down lot in our midst — unless we expose and discard each one in due course.

It was on one of De Castro’s evening programs, where news reporter Willard Cheng presented both sides in the current Spratlys issue in an even-handed and balanced manner, that the anchor followed Cheng’s closing blurb “Willard Cheng reporting for…” with a sarcastic “China ha… Cheng ha…” that oozed with prejudice and innuendo.

The fact that De Castro was installed as vice-president of this country already speaks a lot about our sad state of affairs; but to hear him blabber such nonsense without seemingly gaining a bit of depth from more than six years in high office certainly beats the midget Junrey’s shortness.

A little study of naval ships reveals the limited capabilities of the BRP Humabon, which is a mere escort ship. Compared to our Asean neighbors, the Philippines has fallen a long way off from the time of Marcos when the Philippine Navy was able to present an imposing presence.

I remember that at the height of the Sabah crisis, the Philippine newspapers presented graphic comparisons of Malaysian and Philippine naval assets, and those silhouettes of ships on the Philippine side outnumbered the Malaysian’s significantly.

Today, Malaysia has two Scorpène class submarines, two Lekiu class frigates armed with Exocet missiles, two German Kasturi class frigates, plus an anti-submarine helicopter, corvettes, among others. Singapore has two new Swedish-made submarines launched in 2010, augmenting or substituting four Challenger class submarines. Thailand, meanwhile, is now the only Asean country with an aircraft carrier, the Chakri Naruebet.

Vietnam has spent $1.5 billion (or P64.5 billion) for 6 “Kilo” class submarines from Russia scheduled for delivery in 2010. By 2015, according to Chinese intelligence, Vietnam will receive from the Russian navy two 11661-type frigates, as well as “Ruby” supersonic anti-ship missiles.

One Chinese view is that since Vietnam neither has nuclear submarines nor “Chinese Aegis” (Ballistic Missile Defense) class destroyers but has “the equipment in the coastal waters (with) anti-ship combat capability… (in the event of any) Sino-Vietnamese naval clashes in the South China Sea,” Vietnam’s occupied territories or facilities may not be lost to the Chinese Navy. In other words, Vietnam is capable of holding its own.

In stark contrast, the only acquisitions the Philippine Navy has made of late are several outmoded Hamilton class cutters which reportedly will be purchased out of the royalty earnings from the Malampaya natural gas production. Yet, these potentially include submarines that can’t resurface after submerging.

Philippine defense policy has always been skewed by a neocolonial, pro-oligarchy orientation. It is anti-insurgency insofar as only protecting the economic holdings of the ruling elite against a rebellious, impoverished people, while neglecting our naval and coastal defenses.

The then Armed Forces of the Philippines was still at its peak under Marcos and was to have been the perfect model for sustaining and expanding our country’s defense capabilities. But instead of building on it, the regimes that followed allowed it to rot. The arms manufacturing that was started during Marcos’ time went to seed while the ship-building facilities, which could have built most of the new naval assets the country needed, were allowed to rust into oblivion.

Our nation’s resource base eroded with the collapse of the “11 Industrial Projects” as well as the loss of Sabah (revenues upon which Malaysia built its wealth and defense capabilities). It will take a new leadership of the patriotic and nationalist kind let the Philippines outgrow its status as the Junrey Balawing of the region.

Should we continue to remain the air-weight of Asia, like Junrey Balawing at five kilos, deserving of a place only in a freaks’ gallery? Are we man or mouse? Are we sheepish slaves or free men?

Any muscle building begins first in the mind and the will. Muscles are built by nutritious food and strength training; hence, the need for national food self-sufficiency and accessibility, to heave against the proverbial Sisyphus-ian rock over the mountain. The will is strengthened by self-consciousness; hence, the need to restore our historical and nationalist education and cultural awareness. The sinews of a national economy are made up of iron and steel, and its blood, the energy industry; hence, our “nation-al” economic and industrial development.

At the top of all this is the set of goals in our consciousness, the ideology that unites all of the energies of our people. While the leadership that can carry this through is not in a position to take charge yet, we must therefore prepare the people’s consciousness for it today.

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “GSIS Union Victory vs Winton’s Outrages”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Resolving the dispute

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
6/18-19/2011



I guess it would be prudent for the government to pursue a policy that would serve to maintain our status quo in the Spratly islands. That approach in solving our dispute with China is to solve it from the standpoint of realpolitik. Along that line, we have to set aside all legal and historical basis, like citing the proclamation made by President Elpidio Quirino in 1946, for that could only result in endless debate much that China could equally insist its claim dates back to centuries long before the Philippines was colonized by Spain.

Besides, even after Filipino mariner Tomas Cloma claimed to have discovered the islands in 1957, and asserted ownership by calling them Freedom Islands, he however failed to maintain a permanent foothold if only to satisfy the international law requirement of effective physical occupation. On the contrary, it was only in 1971, after President Ferdinand Marcos sent a military outpost, when we managed to satisfy that requirement. President Marcos in fact issued Presidential Decree 1596 on June 11, 1978 formally annexing the Kalayaan Group of Islands in the Spratlys at a time when the thawing in Sino-Philippine relations was at its peak.

Moreover, even if we argue that our claim was well ahead of Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and, mind you, France, it would not help legally bolster our position. In the absence of diplomatic agreement, it is power that would ultimately resolve the dispute, and we do not have the capability to enforce that. This has become evident in the race to occupy all those islets which came about because of the discovery of oil and natural gas deposits.

The presence of those precious resources within the China Sea rim promptly compelled China and the rest to assert their sovereignty, although by geographical proximity Palawan is much closer to the Spratlys to confirm that it is part of the continental shelf connecting the Philippine archipelago to validate our claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas.

To be sure, there is no way we can extend our occupation over the rest of the disputed islands. But even if we have a legal as well as historic basis, taking a belligerent stand could only deteriorate an already tense situation for which we do not have the capability to make good on our belligerency.

Neither can we rely on the presence of the US navy to act as our big brother. In fact, our dependence on the US military umbrella has resulted in the redefinition of our strategic position, thereby making our interest subservient to that of the US. So, for us to play the game of brinkmanship is to play Russian roulette for it could trigger a backlash with China possibly evicting us out to the area, and that could be most humiliating.

At the moment while tenuous peace continues to breeze the area, our best option to is to keep open the dialogue for negotiations, and explore the possibility of a joint venture and cooperation. We have to be more realistic for at the rate China is modernizing its armed forces there is no way we could match that. Neither can we relay on the US as our proxy in the event of war, even if we roll ourselves to the ground to emphasize the value of our military alliance with them.

Objectively, there is no way we could influence China to change the course of its foreign policy. But certainly the formula of joint venture and cooperation to harness the resources in the area is most practical for it carries with it an assurance that our presence in some of the islands will be respected. It will also reassure China because for the first time we managed to resolve our dispute with them within the framework of bilateral negotiations without us clinging on to the apron of Uncle Sam.

Notably, the country’s ambivalent position is evident, for while at times we appear to be conciliatory in wanting to peacefully resolve the dispute, often we are mouthing the alarmist and jingoistic drum beatings of the US; that allegedly there have been incursions by the Chinese gunboats, buildup of additional ports, barracks and communication facilities, and even accusing China of buzzing our fishermen and soldiers in the islands.

Such inflammatory statements will not help ease the tension. On the contrary, many believe we are being incited by those war-quenched neo-liberals in Washington who obviously wants to place our position at a most disadvantage, while they continue cultivate their own economic gains with China.

In fact, it is doubtful whether the eagerness of the US in pressuring us to take a hard-line stand would suffice to assure us it would come to our succor in the event of an open conflict. If ever they would act, that would only be in pursuit of their interest which is not exactly parallel to our interest. Even that is doubtful whether the US would risk a war that would exact from it an unimaginable cost, taking into account that China is no Santo Domingo or Nicaragua.

But one thing is clear: the US has no strategic interest in the Spratlys for it to risk a war, except: First, if its naval and commercial ships that navigate the China Sea are attacked. Second, if it sees the possibility that China’s control of the potentially-rich oilfields could strategically jeopardize US industrial and military requirements. In the absence of these two possibilities, it is unlikely for the US to come to our assistance even if we are to invoke our defense pact with the Americans.

Already, the US is inciting Vietnam into antagonizing China by holding a joint military exercise in the area. But underneath that effort to seal an agreement with Vietnam for a joint oil exploration, it hopes that its renewed friendship with that country would help erase from the mind of the Vietnamese people the atrocities committed by US soldiers during the war where more than five million of their compatriots were killed. It is the usual power game of using one to isolate the other which is dangerous for the one being pitted against the other.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)