YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
1/23-29/2012
Last Monday, January 16, 2012, Chief Justice Renato “Rene” Coronado Corona faced the Senate sitting as Impeachment Court. However, it is not only his Trial.
The Senate, the House, the P-Noy Aquino Administration, the Armed Forces and the Police, the Mass, as well as the People as Public Opinion, will also undergo their own Trials.
On the eve of the opening of the Trial, a Corona Resignation, as prayed for by P-Noy and his allies, did not happen.
Coup d’état: Senate to Palace
There was instead, a Coup Plot against Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. He has been the Senate President since Manny Villar was ousted in September of 2008.
The Candidate for Senate President of the Plot was Senator Franklin Drilon.
The cost or price of such maneuvers and plots is the enmity of Enrile and his allies, Senators Gregorio Honasan, Jinggoy Estrada and, maybe, even Koko Pimentel.
It is easier to capture the 12 votes needed to win the Senate Presidency than to muster the 16 votes needed to convict Corona.
Making an enemy of Enrile means that the Aquino Administration will not be able to get 16 Senators.
Both a failed as well as a successful Coup now in the Senate may mean or lead to a Palace Coup against the Constitution later on, if and when Corona is acquitted short of the necessary 16 votes.
Drilon, Carpio and PET
Drilon took up law at the UP. He is a member of the Sigma Rho Fraternity.
Senior Associate Justice Antonio Tirol Carpio also took up law at the UP and belongs to the same Fraternity.
He is also a founding partner of the “Firm”, or Carpio, Villaraza and Cruz.
The latter supported Mar Araneta Roxas as a Presidentiable in 2009 and, later, as a Vice Presidential Candidate in the May 10, 2010.
Carpio is the candidate for Chief Justice of the Balay and Liberal faction of the Aquinio Administration.
Roxas has a pending protest against Vice President Jejomar Cabauatan Binay before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal which is composed of the Supreme Court as a whole.
The Chairman of the PET is the Chief Justice.
Corona and Binay
Incumbent Chief Justice Corona studied at the Ateneo from Grade School to High School to College and up to Law School. He is a member of the Utopia Fraternity.
He can be expected to be neutral between the two parties.
Binay studied College and Law at the UP. He is a member of the Alpha Phi Omega (APO) Fraternity.
Sending GMA to jail as well as getting rid of Corona is turning out to be a Pandora’s Box not only for P-Noy but also for all of us Filipinos.
Meanwhile, can life go on for the better?
Or, will we be glued to the formal Impeachment Proceedings at the Senate?
The ‘End All’
Most importantly, can P-Noy debunk the claims made by former President GMA last Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, at the Manila Hotel regarding the Economy?
Or, is he digging his own grave?
Can the Senate and the House do justice to Corona, Democracy and the Philippines?
Or are the 2013 Elections the end all and be all of this game?
There are 11 Senators who are running for reelection themselves or whose relatives are running in their place.
A vicious cycle
What electoral factor will count the most in influencing their votes at the end of the Trial?
Will the relative popularity of Impeachment and P-Noy as against the unpopularity of GMA and Corona count the most as Sen. Sonny Trillanes seems to be explaining his vote in advance?
Will Pork Barrel and other Administration bribes count as much with the Senators as they did with the Congressmen?
Will the presence of the Iglesia ni Kristo on Corona’s side weigh in?
Will the absence of Cardinal Sin’s successor, Archbishop Chito Tagle, and the Roman Catholic Church’s Hierarchy, the CBCP, on the side of P-Noy and Impeachment weigh at all?
Can the Mass Media and Public Opinion still perform their roles?
Or, are they both caught in a giant vicious circle?
Triple, double lose
The blind leading the blind! One mob leading another mob!
Many people believe that Corona is the one with the most to lose in this game.
Many believe that he is in a lose–lose situation. Yes, that may be very true.
However, the whole country may be in a lose–lose–lose situation.
Why the triple lose rather than just a double lose situation?
Three possible outcomes
As we explained in our column two weeks ago, there are three possible outcomes of a completed Impeachment process.
The first is an acquittal by the Majority – 12 or more votes.
The second is a conviction by 16 or more votes.
There is a more dangerous third option.
Twelve to 15 Senators vote for conviction – a simple majority of the Senate but not enough to satisfy the Constitution’s requirement of 16 votes.
However, P-Noy will accept nothing short of a Constitutional Conviction.
Because of his character flaws, he will concentrate on securing this.
Throughout the Trial, he will not be able to concentrate on other more important things.
He will remain focused on Corona with the jaws of a crocodile or hyena that has caught and bitten live game for their food.
Extraordinary economic woes
Meanwhile, the Economy will be allowed to linger.
Any extraordinary additional problem will throw it into a tailspin.
An Iranian blockade of the Straits of Hormuz will block a substantial portion of the world’s oil supply and send prices through the roof.
What contingency plans does P-Noy have for such an eventuality?
However, even if P-Noy gets what he wants out of Corona’s Impeachment Conviction, it does not assure us of political peace and economic growth.
What it will give us is an imbalanced democracy under the control of an imbalanced leader.
And if that imbalanced President does not get what he wants with Plan A, he will try his Plan B – a Palace Coup against Corona, the Senate Verdict and the Constitution!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Impeachment distraction
CONSUMERS' DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/23-29/2012
My latest estimate of the 4.6-million Meralco electricity consumers’ money being swiped by the power distributor yearly is anywhere from a low of P30 billion to a high of P50 billion.
This is being unjustly and immorally, but quasi-legally, siphoned off through distorted policies, cover-ups, and outright deception by Malacañang, the Legislature, the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission), and Meralco in collusion with one another.
Some of the specific methods by which this massive swindle has been carried out are: 1) the ERC’s defiance of a 2003 Supreme Court (SC) decision affirming the validity of the 12% RoRB (Return on Rate Base) rate methodology by subverting it with a PBR (Performance Based Regulation) scheme that raised the private power company’s rate of return to a range of 15% to 17%; 2) the regulatory agency’s disregard of an SC-ordered CoA audit of Meralco finding (in test years 2003 and 2007) that the latter overcharged its customers by at least P14 billion; 3) the ERC’s approval of overstated Meralco capex (capital expenditure) claims of P41 billion that should only have been P1 billion, according to Mang Naro Lualhati, and 4) the overpricing of Meralco’s equipment by 500% upwards, used as the basis for its asset base claims.
Highest in Asia
The public could have very easily gotten to the bottom of the issues that consumer advocates and crusaders have long raised against Meralco and the ERC if the Legislature (the Senate and the Lower House) had only spent a serious day or two to ventilate these properly.
Even the more conservative business and labor groups, such as the PCCI (Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and TUCP (Trade Union Congress of the Philippines), have now joined the public clamor for Malacañang to act on this.
They have obviously done so because they are also feeling the debilitating impact of the “highest power cost in Asia,” which has become a brick wall that investors to the Philippines -- local and foreign -- have run against.
Yet, in spite of the clamor and the pressing need to address this, Malacañang and Congress have kept mum on the matter for 10 years.
Coronavela
The “impeachment trial” is described as a “circus,” a “Coronavela,” or a “big show.”
But should we care for shows in the midst of economic crises?
We couldn’t care less if Corona, who had never shown great deeds anyway (compared with Atty. Alan Paguia’s heroic sacrifice for challenging previous SC misdeeds), gets convicted.
There are grave problems in our energy sector that we care for with a rage, especially when Malacañang, Congress, and big media feign ignorance of the massive abuse and exploitation committed by the electricity regulator and its “liaison” that’s so damaging to the economy.
We care with great anger when they do not grant a full hearing for consumers’ power price crisis pleas.
Palace’s sense of proportion
What inane sense of proportion does Malacañang and Congress have when the show trial gets thousands of government and media man hours, and half of the Senate’s time, over an alleged Corona ill-gotten wealth of over P50 million while they all turn a deaf ear to an annual electricity price plunder of P30 billion to P50 billion?
Some quarters so taken by the impeachment passion play badger us to take sides between BS Aquino III and perceived Gloria Arroyo mole Corona; but I tell them, “Why should you make me choose between the black kettle and the black pot?”
Or, to put it in a much less savory Filipino street quip, someone in support of my position asked, “Bakit mo kami ipagpipili sa tae at ipot?” (Why compel us to choose between shit and bird droppings?”)
To that I added, “The black kettle in Malacañang is now more dangerous than the black pot in jail, along with her cohorts.”
We should all be reminded of the old adage, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Evidence of overprice
If the regime today succeeds in instilling terror in the SC and other government institutions, allowing it to appoint only its own justices and other loyalists to power, then God save this nation again.
Already, we can see the arrogance emanating from the denizens of the shadows of the new Malacañang and its instrumentalities, such as the Liberal Party, the Samar Group, the CCT operators, ad nausea.
Last Jan. 16, at 2 p.m., the start of the Corona impeachment trial was also the same day and time that a significant ERC hearing was held on the “Application for Approval of Maximum Average Price (MAP) for 2012… (and the) Translation of the MAP… into a Distribution Rate Structure for Meralco’s Various Customer Classes.”
But the ERC is hearing these issues without first settling prejudicial questions raised by consumer advocates, namely: 1) consumer advocate Mang Naro Lualhati’s motion for reconsideration on the ERC approval of Meralco’s capital expense claim, upon which the latter’s MAP of P1.60/kWh is based on an overstated asset base, as shown by earlier CoA findings, which rate should only be P0.90/kWh; 2) Jojo Borja’s petition for a TRO on the ERC hearing pending resolution of his protest against the agency’s disregard of his evidence of the overprice in Meralco’s poles, transformers, and substations by over 500%, and 3) Butch Junia’s exposé of a P550 million per year “regulatory liaison” budget by Meralco for the ERC.
Use enemy’s strength
In protest of the proceedings despite the unresolved prejudicial questions and pending Court of Appeals issuances, Borja and Junia staged a walkout.
Lualhati, however, stayed on to argue for the same, i.e. for the ERC to hold in abeyance any further deliberations on the Meralco distribution rates until the prejudicial issues are settled.
Thankfully, he succeeded in limiting the hearing to simply a hearing of facts without any action.
Although I missed that hearing to join our cable TV coverage of the Senate impeachment trial, I used that forum to inform the public about the said ERC hearing and the issues thereat, as part of my guerrilla tactic to get the electricity issue into national focus.
As Sun Tzu advised, “use the enemy’s strength against him.”
In this case, we are highlighting the fight against electricity abuse by the ERC and Meralco, through a discussion of Malacañang’s “show trial,” a zarzuela that is intended to distract from the issues that the public needs to focus on.
(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 “Hocus PCOS used two software;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/23-29/2012
My latest estimate of the 4.6-million Meralco electricity consumers’ money being swiped by the power distributor yearly is anywhere from a low of P30 billion to a high of P50 billion.
This is being unjustly and immorally, but quasi-legally, siphoned off through distorted policies, cover-ups, and outright deception by Malacañang, the Legislature, the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission), and Meralco in collusion with one another.
Some of the specific methods by which this massive swindle has been carried out are: 1) the ERC’s defiance of a 2003 Supreme Court (SC) decision affirming the validity of the 12% RoRB (Return on Rate Base) rate methodology by subverting it with a PBR (Performance Based Regulation) scheme that raised the private power company’s rate of return to a range of 15% to 17%; 2) the regulatory agency’s disregard of an SC-ordered CoA audit of Meralco finding (in test years 2003 and 2007) that the latter overcharged its customers by at least P14 billion; 3) the ERC’s approval of overstated Meralco capex (capital expenditure) claims of P41 billion that should only have been P1 billion, according to Mang Naro Lualhati, and 4) the overpricing of Meralco’s equipment by 500% upwards, used as the basis for its asset base claims.
Highest in Asia
The public could have very easily gotten to the bottom of the issues that consumer advocates and crusaders have long raised against Meralco and the ERC if the Legislature (the Senate and the Lower House) had only spent a serious day or two to ventilate these properly.
Even the more conservative business and labor groups, such as the PCCI (Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and TUCP (Trade Union Congress of the Philippines), have now joined the public clamor for Malacañang to act on this.
They have obviously done so because they are also feeling the debilitating impact of the “highest power cost in Asia,” which has become a brick wall that investors to the Philippines -- local and foreign -- have run against.
Yet, in spite of the clamor and the pressing need to address this, Malacañang and Congress have kept mum on the matter for 10 years.
Coronavela
The “impeachment trial” is described as a “circus,” a “Coronavela,” or a “big show.”
But should we care for shows in the midst of economic crises?
We couldn’t care less if Corona, who had never shown great deeds anyway (compared with Atty. Alan Paguia’s heroic sacrifice for challenging previous SC misdeeds), gets convicted.
There are grave problems in our energy sector that we care for with a rage, especially when Malacañang, Congress, and big media feign ignorance of the massive abuse and exploitation committed by the electricity regulator and its “liaison” that’s so damaging to the economy.
We care with great anger when they do not grant a full hearing for consumers’ power price crisis pleas.
Palace’s sense of proportion
What inane sense of proportion does Malacañang and Congress have when the show trial gets thousands of government and media man hours, and half of the Senate’s time, over an alleged Corona ill-gotten wealth of over P50 million while they all turn a deaf ear to an annual electricity price plunder of P30 billion to P50 billion?
Some quarters so taken by the impeachment passion play badger us to take sides between BS Aquino III and perceived Gloria Arroyo mole Corona; but I tell them, “Why should you make me choose between the black kettle and the black pot?”
Or, to put it in a much less savory Filipino street quip, someone in support of my position asked, “Bakit mo kami ipagpipili sa tae at ipot?” (Why compel us to choose between shit and bird droppings?”)
To that I added, “The black kettle in Malacañang is now more dangerous than the black pot in jail, along with her cohorts.”
We should all be reminded of the old adage, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Evidence of overprice
If the regime today succeeds in instilling terror in the SC and other government institutions, allowing it to appoint only its own justices and other loyalists to power, then God save this nation again.
Already, we can see the arrogance emanating from the denizens of the shadows of the new Malacañang and its instrumentalities, such as the Liberal Party, the Samar Group, the CCT operators, ad nausea.
Last Jan. 16, at 2 p.m., the start of the Corona impeachment trial was also the same day and time that a significant ERC hearing was held on the “Application for Approval of Maximum Average Price (MAP) for 2012… (and the) Translation of the MAP… into a Distribution Rate Structure for Meralco’s Various Customer Classes.”
But the ERC is hearing these issues without first settling prejudicial questions raised by consumer advocates, namely: 1) consumer advocate Mang Naro Lualhati’s motion for reconsideration on the ERC approval of Meralco’s capital expense claim, upon which the latter’s MAP of P1.60/kWh is based on an overstated asset base, as shown by earlier CoA findings, which rate should only be P0.90/kWh; 2) Jojo Borja’s petition for a TRO on the ERC hearing pending resolution of his protest against the agency’s disregard of his evidence of the overprice in Meralco’s poles, transformers, and substations by over 500%, and 3) Butch Junia’s exposé of a P550 million per year “regulatory liaison” budget by Meralco for the ERC.
Use enemy’s strength
In protest of the proceedings despite the unresolved prejudicial questions and pending Court of Appeals issuances, Borja and Junia staged a walkout.
Lualhati, however, stayed on to argue for the same, i.e. for the ERC to hold in abeyance any further deliberations on the Meralco distribution rates until the prejudicial issues are settled.
Thankfully, he succeeded in limiting the hearing to simply a hearing of facts without any action.
Although I missed that hearing to join our cable TV coverage of the Senate impeachment trial, I used that forum to inform the public about the said ERC hearing and the issues thereat, as part of my guerrilla tactic to get the electricity issue into national focus.
As Sun Tzu advised, “use the enemy’s strength against him.”
In this case, we are highlighting the fight against electricity abuse by the ERC and Meralco, through a discussion of Malacañang’s “show trial,” a zarzuela that is intended to distract from the issues that the public needs to focus on.
(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 “Hocus PCOS used two software;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
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