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.)