Radical reversal needed

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
3/23/2012



The day after our Monday column on the Mindanao power sabotage and blackmail, our comrade in the fight against the electricity supply manipulation rang up early in the morning. Jojo Borja, stockholder of Iligan Light and Power, told me that the long power blackouts had suddenly stopped just two days after our GNN episode on the issue last Saturday evening.

For good measure, the Monday papers started to reflect the struggle we have waged for months as some politicians have reportedly called for investigations. The name of Serge Osmena even cropped up after being forced to respond to questions from fellow senators, namely, Chiz Escudero and Koko Pimentel. In the Lower House, Mindanao Reps. Vicente Belmonte and Rufus Rodriguez have clamored for action, too. While were happy over these actions, why did they have to come so late? More importantly, can our lawmakers provide the long-term solution by, first of all, reversing the wretched Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) posthaste?

The citizens, power sector players, as well as business and local political leaders of Mindanao have long demanded the mobilization of available power resources, which the oligarchs minions in the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (Psalm) Corp. have kept mothballed despite billions of pesos in losses in the regions economy.

At the same time, Mindanaoans, particularly the electric cooperatives (ECs), have made clear their very strong objection to the privatization of the hydroelectric plants of Mindanao, such as the Agus-Pulangui system. Not all of them, though, realize that the solution to the entire nations power price woes lies in this very demand the end to privatization of the power sector. And this would ultimately mean the repeal of the Epira, a law that bans the public sector from setting up and maintaining its own non-profit power generation facilities that are funded by the peoples captive patronage via monthly payments.

If Philippine media had any real dedication to the nation and the peoples welfare, this power price issue should always be the major news item all the time. Sadly, mainstream media, which carry the most palpable daily impact, are hopelessly in the chains of the oligarchs control.

We have been told that one party-list congressman has been boycotted by ABS-CBN in the past few days since he started raising the issue and named the power oligarchs.

Of course, we all know whose diktats are followed at ABS-CBN, and the other major TV networks are no less controlled.

There used to be laws against such over-reaching control of business and media, but not anymore.

Besides PeNoy safeguarding his clans' own P10-billion interest in Hacienda Luisita, coupled with his desire to have an Aquino high court, I have long held that the Corona impeachment hullabaloo is part of a deliberate PR strategy of the spinmasters (and puppet masters) of Malacaang to divert from the truly crucial issues of the country.

Imagine: Even when the power crisis had already caused billions in daily losses to Mindanao, rousing a seemingly incipient rebellion from the locals there, this power crisis issue still couldn't make it to the banner of the major news outfits!

You can just see the twisted priority of the patently pro-PeNoy op-ed and news writers who wont be shaken to give way to this vital economic issue even for a day. Still, I am thankful that the Mindanao power rebellion has at last come to fore.

Corollary to our power price woes is our fossil fuel supply that is always at the mercy of world market prices, which absolutely do not reflect true global demand.

Robert Reich, professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and a former Bill Clinton Labor Secretary, explains in his article (Why Republicans Arent Mentioning the Real Cause of Rising Prices at the Gas Pump) that Financial speculators historically accounted for about 30 percent of oil contracts, producers and end users for about 70 percent. But today speculators account for 64 percent of all contracts. Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the federal agency that regulates trading in oil futures warns that too few financial players control too much of the oil market (allowing) them to push oil prices higher and higher not only on the basis of their expectations about the future but also expectations about how high other speculators will drive the price.

Why then do we 95 million Filipinos allow ourselves to fall prey to these oil speculators greed and whims? For that matter, why does Obama allow his 313 million US citizens to be victimized by the same?

It's because the world has relinquished control to the financial mafias through democratic elections, which are really akin to their brand of political UFCs (Ultimate Fighting Championships). Whats worse is that in the US, Jews control that countrys money.

So it is imperative for the Philippines to oust the domestic lackeys of the Global Finance Mafia, like the one running 60 percent of our power supply today.

In 1986, Cory Aquino reversed the public sector or state-led economic development model by enshrining in her Constitution several private sector-led schemes while handing the Bangko Sentral to a monetary board composed of five from the private sector and only two from government (instead of the other way around).

That is why, above all else, a radical counter-revolution to the Yellows turnover of our government to the oligarchs is needed now more than ever.

(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNNs HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., after Lent, on Mining: Bomb or Boon?; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)