While glued to ‘impeach show’

CONSUMERS' DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/30-2/5/2012



While Metro Manila and the Philippine mainstream media are glued to the Corona impeachment trial in the Senate, the thieves are getting away with highway robbery right under the noses of the people. As it has been for the past two-and-a-half decades, the target of this gigantic burglary are the crown jewels of the nation’s energy sector, this time focused on Mindanao’s.

Our fellow power consumer crusader and expert, second generation power distribution company entrepreneur, Mr. Uriel “Jojo” Borja of Iligan Light and Power, has been up in arms over the artificial power crisis in Mindanao being concocted to justify contracting new power generation capacity at double the cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the next 25 years.

At present, power generation in Mindanao costs an average of P2.60/kWh, but if the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corp. were to have their way, this will rise to around P5.00/kWh, almost equal to those of Luzon and Visayas’ generation rates.

Mindanao has traditionally enjoyed half the cost compared to other parts of the country because the bulk of its power supply comes from hydroelectric power plants such as Agus-Pulangui. However, experts have said that the government agencies’ management of these hydroelectric dams and power plants has been a dismal failure due to sheer incompetence or (as others argue) willful neglect.

For one, dredging and de-silting have not been religiously performed, reducing the capacities of these dams, while the scheduling of the release and use of their reserves for power have been suspiciously untimely, exhausting them too early and emptied just as seasonal shortages are expected -- seemingly to justify the frequent DoE “red alerts” on impending power curtailments.

Quite strangely, the DoE has been issuing “red alerts” since 2009, citing expected rainfall shortages from droughts brought about by La Niña. Even though these are repeatedly predicted, Jojo Borja counters that the rains that have come every year have more than defied these predictions.

For instance, 2011 was supposed to be a dry year for Mindanao; but Typhoon “Sendong” came and Cagayan de Oro and Iligan were devastated with a deluge resulting in murderous landslides. I wrote and disputed several weeks ago a power shortage “red alert” issued by the DoE and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the private company that took over government’s transmission grid. Sadly, this is still being repeated today.

Although some parts of Mindanao are said to be experiencing as much as eight-hour brownouts -- much like what Luzon had during Cory Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos’ time, Borja early last week confirmed that what they had noticed in Iligan suddenly ceased (for no explicable reason) a week later.

Some people attribute the brownouts in some areas to lack of power transmission connections, as mentioned over a DWIZ radio morning talk show. But Borja does not see any power supply shortages, and if there are or will be, he says these will only be short-term and will not justify contracting new power plants.

The National Power Corp. (Napocor) has vintage 90s power crisis power barges (PB) lying idle in Luzon, waiting to be utilized for emergencies; but the DoE Secretary Rene Almendras announced again last week that PB 101, 102, 103, and 104 will be sold off by March 2012.

To a normal, rational, and logical mind, Almendras’ plan is absolutely ridiculous. It will only cause the same tragic result as the 2009 sale of PB 117 and 118 to the Aboitizes’ Therma Marine group for $30 million, which it turned around and revalued a few months later at $70 million and used as its rate base for supplying emergency power to Mindanao--thereby horrendously raising the power cost!

As such, Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro vehemently objected to the sale of the said power barges in 2009 and continues to object to the present hurried sale. Instead, he calls for the four power barges still owned by government to be transferred to Mindanao to provide emergency power at the lower cost that Napocor provides--a plea that the DoE is seemingly deaf to.

In fact, more than insisting on selling the power barges in March, the DoE has also opened the way for new power plants to be contracted and set up in Mindanao, which is reminiscent of the independent power producers (IPPs) in Luzon of the 90s during Ramos’ time.

As it was back then, these new contracts will surely have “take or pay,” purchased power agreements that consumers will see tacked on to their bills whether they use electricity or not--for the next 20 to 25 years. And so the scam that was inflicted on Luzon in the 90s that has saddled the country with an $18-billion Napocor debt is being inflicted on Mindanao this time.

There is clearly a well-established modus operandi in all this that involves the conspiracy of the international finance mafia, the corrupt political authorities, together with the local and (in this case) Mindanao oligarchy to swindle the people. Make no mistake about it, Malacañang is without doubt a party to all this since such a scheme will not ever fly without its consent.

So we appeal to our dear Filipino consumers and taxpayers: Wake up to the systematic and massive swindle against us by the conspiracy of the ruling oligarchs and their political agents in elected and appointed government positions. Let us train our eyes and our passions on the issues that really matter, and demand the fulfillment of our economic rights, as well as the provision of the people’s basic needs at the least, most constructive, and effective cost.

Let us never be distracted again by the “Weapons of Mass Distraction” provided by the political theater where these tradpols spend hours grandstanding but give nary a day or hour to zero in on the grandest scam of the century--the power rip-off occurring daily in our midst.

(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., on “Geopolitical crisis on the horizon;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)