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)
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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.
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
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