Ceasefire betrayal

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

2/3/2013

Daily Tribune

The public had finally begun to benefit from democratic noise and politics with the Senate imbroglio over the "Christmas gift" allocations. For once, all the cats seemed to have come out of the bag. For a while there, all the dirty linen being washed before the public seemed to portend a Senate on the road to being transformed into an institution that we can all be proud of — one that is bright and clean.

Much of the dirt and stink had been in that body's laundry bag for decades, such as Lacson's expose of Miriam's building cum Senate sub-office behind McDonald's on Quezon Avenue (that acted as the latter's campaign HQ since the 90s). Why the erstwhile fugitive solon waited 20 years and only during the majority vs minority bloc feud to bring it out, we could grudgingly excuse. But then came this "ceasefire" call, which I feel the public should feel really betrayed by.

The Palace announced its "welcome" of the ceasefire (which is again in violation of the 'separation of powers" principle). Certainly, Malacañang has no business commenting on what should or should not happen in the Upper Chamber's internal affairs. If it were to express any interest at all, it should be to respond to the public's resounding desire for a full unmasking of all the culprits in the Senate.

For that matter, the Lower House should also be made to follow, maybe with the prodding of the Commission on Audit (CoA). The CoA, for its part, has been exposed as another inutile fixture of the "checks and balance" in the system as it admitted helplessness in the face of the Senate's "fiscal independence," which renders its auditors in that body really inutile. The ceasefire was called by the Senate President purportedly in order for the senators to focus on the passage of seven measures and 90 bills that are still pending. Sen. Edgardo Angara gave another justification — the Gopac (Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption) meet ongoing now, from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2, in Manila.

But if we were to go by the record of global politicians in terms of corruption issues, the Philippine Senate has nothing to be ashamed of. If our senators do not let up in the pursuit of exposes of their fellow legislators' malfeasance, then they may still gain the admiration of more people. But, being one with the US legacy of "pork barrel" that makes it one of the most corrupted, it is unlikely that the Senate will do so. What the ceasefire will only do is push back billions of budget, "pork barrel," and conflict-of-interest issues back into the dark bag. Thus, we'll never know when the cats can come out again. The senators — except perhaps one or two who are too new to have the opportunity for fiscal abuse — have a lot of cats to hide; and it's not just the kind alluded to by Cayetano.

We've personally had our fair share of the Senate President's ceasefire tactics. In our battle against the electric power pirates in 2001 where he joined us in signing a court petition against the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act), he suddenly had a ceasefire with the oligarchs. Thankfully, my colleagues and I never accepted a ceasefire and have kept fighting on.

By the way, the top power pirate has been on a PR surge of late, appearing last week in a mainstream Sunday edition, being praised to high heavens and compared to Alexander the Great (his apparent idol) for supposedly achieving a lot. Of course, Alexander killed off a great many people just as his company, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), has done by making many Filipinos destitute, shattering their children's dreams of decent and hopeful lives, as well as murdering our national economy with the highest power rates in Asia (the real reason for RP lagging in investments, "not" the silly claim that if s due to our Constitution's nationalist provisions).

So let us remind the public of the real economic/business, and political heroes in our midst. Right now, Jojo Boria of Iligan Light and Power and Sanlakas lawyer Luke Espiritu are valiantly slugging it out in the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) hearings.

Borja's case No. 2011-088-RC on the 942-percent overpricing of electric poles and the 500-percent overpricing of transformers by Meralco are in the final stages. We expect this to go to the Supreme Court where we will face an oligarchy-controlled en banc. Sixty-seven-year-old Borja last year had to be rushed for angioplasty in the midst of the hearings, and this January had to be confined due to vertigo from stress, also because of the hearings. Still, there is no ceasefire as far as he's concerned.
Our other crusader, 89-year-old Mang Naro Lualhati, called me to request that I find a lawyer to bring his case, 2012-054-RC, to lawyer Alan Paguia because the ERC cannot be relied upon. Lualhati is exposing the Meralco rate base of P129 billion as an overstatement of P46 billion, based on a 2009 CoA report of the power company's real assets at only P78 billion, where the Maximum Average Price (MAP) should only be P0.90 per kiiowatt-hour and not the present P1.6333/kWh being exacted on us with the help of the ERC, Thus, for Lualhati, there is simply no rest in this fight.

When there's no ceasefire anymore against corruption — that's when the Filipino nation will be truly liberated.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com, with this week's topic, "Ceasefire on Money Politics?;" also visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)