Consumer advocacy and libel cases

CONSUMERS' DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/14-20/2012



Last week we received several texts informing us of a discussion over a friendly radio program mentioning us and our crusade against power oligarchs and their DPAs (deep penetration agents) in government.  The texts said one of the anchors opined that libel suits from those power oligarchs and their henchmen may just be waiting to be filed.  One potential complainant mentioned was Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Jose Rene Almendras; another name was mentioned but not all the texters could remember.  One mentioned the name of Manny Pangilinan, the Meralco big boss.  I called Linggoy Alcuaz, fellow OpinYon columnist now on leave for medical check-ups, who is a regular listener of the radio program concerned.  He explained that the "libel" issue was discussed theoretically.  I said that I would welcome the suit anyway as it would help highlight the crusade we are waging against the power abuse and exploitation going on with impunity.
 
Over the past years we have been slapped with around a dozen libel and defamation cases.  One case that dragged the publisher of the other newspaper I write for involved a P100-million claim for "damages" which dragged on for at least five years until the judge ordered a mediation process.  That case involved a power oligarch over another public utility--the North Luzon Expressway.  The filing fee alone for that suit cost the oligarch P1 million, a huge sum which would only be forfeited, but the oligarch believed it was worth it just to gag us for the duration of the case.  For me and my publisher, it involved endless trips to the courts in hot, humid salas of different judges, with the oligarch never once attending, leaving it to his law (or low) counsels.  To finally end the enervation, my publisher issued an apology for the oligarch to drop a P2-million demand for damages, which I followed in support of my publisher, but not without first bullshitting the oligarch's representative to the mediation.
 
The public utility privateers (or pirates) are aided in their plunder by such libel and defamation laws that make it very easy for the culprits to gag and/or burden journalists, critics, and consumer advocates (like Nasecore, or the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms, whose leader Pete Ilagan was slapped with a libel case by the Lopezes).  For the power oligarchs and plunderers, along with their henchmen, the cost of a few millions to tie up consumer protection advocates is a pittance for them to tie up their nemeses who are trying to stop them from looting hundreds of billions from the power consuming public.  Still, this harassment will not stop us from continuing with our crusade to end the abuse and exploitation, to restore the power sector to national or consumer ownership and control, to halve the rates being charged, and to prosecute these oligarchs and their agents someday.
 
Meanwhile, a headline blared last week ("Meralco files plea for 2013 rate hike") that is sure to not go unopposed.  Former Misamis Oriental Gov. Homobono Adaza and Mindanao anti-power privatization crusader Jojo Borja of Iligan Light and Power updated me on the latest attempt of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to pull a fast one on power consumers.  This refers to the case filed by octogenarian accountant and consumer advocate Mang Naro Lualhati against the MAP (Maximum Allowable Price) application of Meralco before the ERC, a rate now the subject of newspaper reports announcing the projected 2013 Meralco rate increase.  The notice of ERC hearing arrived anomalously late, at Adaza's residence on the Sunday afternoon before the Monday hearing.  Adaza thus had to call Borja to fly from Bukidnon, where the latter had just alighted, back to Cagayan de Oro and to Manila overnight to catch the next day's event.
 
At the ERC hearing last Monday, only a "hearing officer" presided.  Upon arriving at the hearing and entering his appearance, Adaza asked the "hearing officer" if he was "the" hearing officer.  It turned out that the guy was only a clerk of court.  Only after being informed that Adaza was at the hearing did the chairperson of the ERC, Zenaida Ducut, appear and preside--a basic requirement of the law which has never been met in all the past ERC hearings.
 
Since the instant proceeding was being called to formally accept the evidence of Meralco for its MAP approval, it was an evidentiary hearing which Adaza says is illegal since Borja also has a pending petition at the Court of Appeal questioning the continuation of the hearings until all prejudicial questions were resolved.
 
Adaza and Borja would have missed the ERC hearing if the deliberately late arrival of the notice for the hearing wasn't noted that Sunday.  Adaza no longer made an issue of this as they had already averted the scheme.  But he found the order for the hearing anomalous as well, as it was signed "for the ERC commissioners," when the law requires that such orders are signed by all the commissioners.  As this regular anomaly was no longer tolerated by Adaza, the entire proceeding for Meralco's presentation of evidence was delayed for another five days.  As such, five million customers got a reprieve thanks to Adaza, Borja, and Lualhati (who wasn't able to attend due to physical infirmities).
 
The ERC's attempts to frustrate consumer advocates' exposés of Meralco's predatory rate hike petitions have had a long history.  Since 2003, both Meralco and the ERC have had their way in running rings around even the Puno Supreme Court and the Commission on Audit.  When BS Aquino III stepped into Malacañang, the power oligarchs' noose tightened even more around the high court with the appointment of his justices, starting with Justice Lourdes Sereno, who had always decided in favor of Meralco in the most crucial issue of rate increases and nitpicked on consumer protectionists.
 
Latest reports from Mindanao say brownouts there are getting longer, with the cause supposedly the rehabilitation work now being done at the Agus-Pulangi left undone for two years of the BS Aquino III government despite desperate pleas from Mindanaoans in 2010.
 
As the negligence clearly was deliberate, the delay in the plants' rehabilitation directly led to the power shortfalls that created the power crisis, which became another opportunity for oligarchs like the Aboitizes to price gouge the people.
 
In the wake of Mindanao's electricity woes, government was compelled to call for a summit and schedule a hearing of the Joint Congressional Power Commission for April.  Amazingly, Sen. Serge Osmeña postponed the meet for another month claiming no quorum, which his House counterpart Rep. Dina Abad ensured by getting out of town!  All these as government's losses have already reached P15 billion, with the local Mindanao economy losing up to P60 billion.
 
(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 May 12, "Malampaya plunder" with Rep. Neri Colmenares; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)