Erap restores hope

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / 7/10/2013 / Daily Tribune

This is an e-mail sent to us last Friday:

Dear Herman,
The first few weeks of Mayor Erap offered much encouragement for all of us Manilans, for example:

1) The daily horrific traffic jam in front of City Hall that reaches all the way to the MacArthur, Quiapo and Jones bridges was solved immediately the first few days of Mayor Erap in office;
2) The monstrous bottleneck in Divisoria and J. Abad Santos Ave. disappeared overnight;
3) The squatters' vehicles blocking the exit of the Paco to V. Mapa bridge area were towed away today;
4) The removal of provincial PUBs from our city's streets is being enforced; and many other actions.
Congratulations!

But we seniors have a new complaint to report to you. Please bring this to Mayor Erap. Since last week, SM Cinema has tried to limit the attendance of all senior Manilians by making all its movie houses run on single showings only; thus, forcing all of us seniors to wait two to three hours outside the movie houses until the next showing. This has the effect of forcing many of us to abandon seeing the movie, as time is very precious to people like us. Mayor Erap standing up for us seniors will make all senior citizens lifetime loyalists even if time is running out for us.

More power to you.
Victor.

May I add that even jeepney drivers passing through the Lawton area are all praises, as the traffic jams there that limit their turn around trips have been cleared of the huge bus build-ups that literally dam up the complex intersection where traffic from four bridges and two major arterials roads converge. An overwhelming proportion of Manilans believes they are winners in President-Mayor Joseph Estrada's decisive action to free Manila's streets of colorum and non-Manila-based provincial buses, as well as other road obstacles such as illegally parked vehicles. But there are also those who feel they are on the losing end, such as the many commuters from Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan and Quezon City, who, in trying to reach the very center of the metropolis, are compelled to drop off at the boundaries of the City of Manila.

A classmate of my son at De La Salle University — Manila complains that he now has to walk from the World Trade Center at the junction of Roxas Blvd. and Buendia all the way to the university. Before the ban, the bus that he takes brings him all the way to the gates of DLSU before it proceeds toward Plaza Lawton. Now, he has to take two jeepney rides from WTC to DLSU that would cost an extra P16, which his daily allowance cannot afford anymore. My heart goes out to such "casualties" in the decision to unclog Manila's roads by cutting the buses at the boundaries; but it was an action that was sorely needed and has proven so far to be the long needed impetus to energize the country toward solving real problems.

The problematic situation of hapless commuters, such as that DLSU student coming from Cavite to Taft-Vito Cruz, is not something that Manila City Hall alone can solve. That problem requires a higher level of coordination and consultation, which has not been on the agenda of any Yellow administration since 1986.
Edsa Uno emaciated the Metro Manila Commission (MMC) — created in 1975 by President Ferdinand Marcos and headed by then First Lady Imelda Marcos — by changing it to the Metro Manila Authority and, later, the Metro Manila Development Authority as it stands today. With the weakening of the MMC's powers, centralized planning and coordination also eroded. Chaos and impasse in Metro Manila's traffic infrastructure planning and policy-making soon ensued.

It has taken someone like Erap to break the impasse, so much so that now, all Metro Manila mayors and concerned authorities are compelled to start shaking their long sleeping legs. For sure, there are many other approaches to the traffic nightmares Metro Manila cities are experiencing; but only Erap as mayor has provided the decisive stimulus — and it does not stop there. As newspapers have reported, Erap's plans include the deployment of electric buses, which would hit two birds with one stone — pollution and the intra-Manila bus system. This column would also suggest two-decker buses (as Imelda Marcos had deployed in the 1970s), along appropriate routes such as Roxas Blvd. and Edsa, but this would require greater Metro-wide coordination.

A special, mandatory school-bussing program for all schools in traffic-congested areas such as Ortigas-Greenhills, Katipunan-Aurora, Ortigas-Edsa, Chinatown, among many readily identifiable places is also recommended; and in the long term, infrastructure investment in second level and/or underpass roadways.
What President-Mayor Joseph Estrada has highlighted most of all is that what is needed to break the impasse and paralysis of previously perceived intractable problems is "leadership."

Yes, it's that simple. Erap — no darling of the highfaluting Edsa Uno and Dos crowds — is no "economist" like Gloria Arroyo and doesn't speak French like the late Cory Aquino. Neither is he a West Point graduate like Fidel Ramos. But he solves problems that none of these darlings of the "respectable" crowds have ever tried to do. One can only surmise Erap's immense positive contributions to the country if he was never ousted from the presidency — or if his return to executive power was never thwarted by Hocus-PCOS.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

Fil-Am ‘patriots’

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Things fall apart

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / 7/22/2013 / Daily Tribune

As I think of the State of the Nation address (Sona) day, the title of the first novel by an African writer I read some decades ago came to mind.
"Things Fall apart" by Chinua Achebe, the writer Africa believes is the Nobel Prize for Literature awardee that could never be due to Western colonialist fears of the truth. It's an entirely different setting and theme from what this column is about but the title is most appropriate for the state of things in the Philippines under the present regime and all the past 25 years after the establishment of the Yellow dynasty in the Philippines. The economy, the moral structure of society, the educational system, its politics, the foreign relations of the country, its territory, they are all falling apart and in shambles.

Before I proceed on to the Sona, there's an SOS from friends of new Bureau of Immigration OIC commissioner Siegfried Mison who has been the subject of media bombardment instigated by immigration BI employees.

I first heard the harangues on dzMM, then read some in newspapers. The issue is "padding" of fuel use during an earlier stint there, which reports say Mison had been reprimanded for already. I had the same experience as a neophyte government official in my time at the refugee center. It's a slip up, a minor infraction. To size up the problem I called up former immigration chief Bono Adaza. Bono lambasted the endemic corruption among many BI career employees, saying any clean-up will be met with brickbats. BI ne'er-do-wells may be fearing Mison. Last February, the Ombudsman ordered 45 BI employees sacked and 48 disciplined.

The Sona this year will be no different from all previous ones since Cory Aquino's first in 1987. It'll be the usual cover-ups of the destructive consequence the Yellow forces "reforms" that have wrought on the nation's governance, and socio-economic and political infrastructure. The Yellow's rule was paved by the intrusion of the US State Department in collaboration with the traditional oligarchy, primarily with the Makati Business Club, the Catholic hierarchy, many Western nurtured NGOs and "leftists," opportunist political opposition groups and band-wagoned Metro-Manila middle class and masa. Marcos had a program to build a nation, the Yellows had the program to profit and transfer such to foreign and local corporations of which they had interlocking ownership.

The only post-1987 Sona that spoke the truth was President Joseph Estrada's 1998 Sona where he declared the well-known fact that the Philippine economy was: Bangkarote (bankrupt). Two years later he was deposed for his incorrigible truth-telling and actions to resolve real problems. He prioritized restoration of peace and order and focused on trouncing the MILF, but that would have scuttled US plans to have a surrogate state in Mindanao. The Yellow crowd helped the US depose Estrada. Truth-telling and taking forceful action do not pay in Philippines politics. To be successful in Philippine national politics, one needs to feign belief in the country's sovereignty and democracy.

Today's Sona will be again an exercise in hypocrisy. Not just for BS Aquino III but for almost all members of Congress, the Senate, Malacañang and its Cabinet. Among media, mainstream broadcast media reporters on site, in Congress, will be the most pressured to put on the best act, pretending something important is going on by describing the flashiest wears of the solons and counting the numbers of applause to what is regularly a boring speech full of data twisting and outright lying on the state-of-the-nation; lies about government uplifting the poor and hungry, stimulating economic "growth," campaigns against corruption, ad nausea, all to divert from the latest, brazen police rubout and the crackle of "chi-chacha-ron" of pork and charter change for the benefit of foreign interests.

The true state of the nation can be summed up in the most scandalous news report of a Czech ambassador threatening to speak on a $ 30-million extortion try on the Czech company Inekon Trams on an MRT coaches supply deal. It dragged in Ballsy Aquino and hubby Eldon Cruz, as well as Cory Aquino DoTC secretary Pete Prado. After a week on the brink Malacañang with whatever backroom maneuvers got the Czech ambassador Josef Rychtar to salvage Ballsay, Eldon and First family's reputation by shifting blame to DoTC officials in general and throwing in an outright lie that "a government-to-government contracts do not allow commissions" while the world knows it is such deals that provide the largest under-the-table commissions.

There's a litany of crises that is hanging in the air crying out to be resolved, but all of which will be glossed over by BS Aquino III's Sona: hunger and joblessness grows, 20,000 OFWs in Taiwan in peril of losing jobs, two police rub-outs unresolved (Atimonan and Cavite), Philippine territories carved out by MILF, economic losses in the China stand-off, automation f—ked democracy, utility costs and taxes skyrocketing, ad infinitum.

Things have fallen apart more than we can imagine.

(Tune to 1098 AM, 5 to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Friday; Destiny Cable, Channel 8, Saturday 8 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m.: "OFWs await RP-Taiwan conciliation"; visit: http//www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com; text comments to 0923-4095739)

On the First Family’s ‘integrity’

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / 7/15/2013 / Daily Tribune

Since the corruption story about the First Family came out, there has been a tremendous public relations effort to put out the fires of speculation around it. The First Family is, of course, the bachelor BS Aquino III, his sisters, and his brothers-in-law. The speculation involves an alleged "advance" from Czech company Inekon to a group led by presidential brother-in-law Eldon Cruz, whose wife is Ballsy Aquino (the most Cory Aquino look-alike of the four sisters), apparently in exchange for a contract to supply light-railway train coaches to the Metro Rail Transit Corp.
The source of the speculation was an AM radio report citing unnamed informants. Subsequently, radio station dzRH reported that a Czech Republic representative to the Philippines was readying to spit out the details.
Malacañang doused the fires with every resource in its command, including media assets such this newspaper publisher who represents the kind of media that would defend today's First Family. But let me get right to the point of this piece: We do not even need the present Inekon controversy to know the true nature of the Aquino-Cojuangco family and its entire political clan.

One only needs to look at the prime example of the corrupt character of the family: The history of one of its prized family jewels, Hacienda Luisita, a piece of around 6,500 hectares of land bigger than the cities of Makati and Pasay combined, finagled through political connections and funded by public funds, which the family refused to return to the farmers as stipulated in the original agreement.
What the Aquino-Cojuangcos did in the Hacienda Luisita deal, however, is not unique to them. It is the trademark of the prevailing ruling class that "owns" the country. By "ruling class," we do not refer simply to "the rich" but "the rich intertwined with the politics and foreign relations of this country." They are the ones who really make the decisions and are responsible for deposing our elected leaders. The Edsa II coup against Erap Estrada, for instance, had to have the imprimatur of Cory Aquino, in much the same way that Estrada's "redemption" years later had to be lent some added weight by that Yellow figurehead's apology.
Speaking of that episode in our history, what were the real motives of much of the Aquino-Cojuangcos in eventually going against Gloria Arroyo? Was it not Gloria's countermove post-Hyatt 10 of refusing to extend the Hacienda Luisita "behest" lease? Was it not the same in the case of BS Aquino's "conviction" of former Chief Justice Renato Corona?

A very explicit example of how the "immaculate" clan members go about their unobtrusive operations is the case of the PLDT telecommunications gateway during the time of Cory Aquino. We have as witness a bona fide but rebellious and socialist-minded former National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) insider Linggoy Alcuaz, who is sometimes dubbed by cousins as a "traitor to his own class," knowing that he tried to break the PLDT monopoly of the international gateway at that time, in the mid-80s.

For his anti-Marcos activism, Alcuaz was appointed NTC commissioner. Knowing how he can be bullheaded and independent, the Aquinos made sure they had control of the two deputy commissioners, such that each of them was recommended by sons-in-law Eldon Cruz and Manolo Abeleda. When Alcuaz signed the additional gateways to two PLDT competitors, the deputy commissioner recommended by Eldon Cruz ran to him trembling and pleading, "Eldon called. What am I to do?" to which he said that that he had the sole responsibility. Alcuaz was eventually fired by Cory Aquino, though he contends that it was because of a coup prediction he made. Others, though, believe it was really because of that PLDT gateway issue. Having said that, influence peddling is still the least of the crimes of the clan.

Historical evidence of the Aquino-Cojuangcos' crony and bureaucrat capitalism, as well as obsequious allegiance to predatory powers for their self-aggrandizement, is outstanding. Many Filipinos now know of Doña Isidra Cojuangco and the missing revolutionary treasury of the Katipunan. The Aquino-Cojuangcos' defense, cited in one account, is that they were "aided by free rail transport to Manila markets from their rice mill in Paniqui (the commercial rate at that time being P2.50 per sack), as a gift from General Arthur MacArthur, whom they assisted with accommodation and storage space during the American advance." The problem is, "in this period rice production in Tarlac was hampered not only by war, but also by severe floods and locust plagues." Thus, "it is difficult to see how this… two-hectare property and small rice mill in 1896… (grew to become) 2,000 hectares along the rail line by 1901."

After abandoning the Philippine Revolution in favor of American colonizers, the Aquino-Cojuangcos were just as quick to join the Japanese Imperial forces, serving as political props for the new occupying powers. Grandfather Benigno Simeon Aquino Sr. served as head of parliament of the puppet government while grandmother Aurora Aquino led its women's bureau. How much did they profit then? Honestly, isn't this claimed extortion possible that the Czechs reportedly allege today? Hell, yeah!

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on "China, RP, and US hegemonism"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

Taking RP and Filipinos for saps?

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / 7/10/2013 / Daily Tribune

For over a week now, a Reuters report on China's supposed threat of a "counterstrike" has riled and wildly agitated Philippine media and officialdom. Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Albert del Rosario was quoted as having branded the alleged "official" statement as "irresponsible." Countless media commentators, including "military experts" and "diplomats" — from BusinessWorld's Rafael Alunan to Manila Standard Today's Ambassador Alejandro del Rosario — lambasted the supposed counterstrike threat. I hope they had watched Global News Network (GNN)'s Sunday show with Kit Tatad that featured his interview with the premier China expert in the Philippines, Chito Sta. Romana, where the latter revealed Reuters' error in translation. We would love to give them copies just so that they'd sober up.
Chito sent us a comparison of the Chinese characters used by Reuters and the exact words used in the opinion piece in the People's Daily. I don't know if Tribune's printing press is able to print these characters so I'll also supply the phonetics. According to Chito, the "Chinese characters used in the original article are those which means "counter-measures" (pronounced "fanzhi"). Somehow it got translated by the international media as "counter-strike," which is (pronounced "fanji").
I read the Reuters article with the "counter-strike" translation, which was carried by our media. Here is the link to the Chinese article on "counter-measures": http://world.people.com.cn/n/2013/0629/c1002-22014733.html. "Fanzhi" can be found in the second line of the last paragraph."
Did the erroneous Reuters translation intend to take the Philippines (and Filipinos) for a wild ride on anti-China vituperations? We'll never know that for sure; but clearly, many of our so-called "intelligentsia" had been too easily aroused to rabid anti-China and war-mongering sentiments.

These Filipino pundits are perhaps only too eager to show their abiding obedience to the unspoken desires of the traditional Western masters of this land that ever since they read between the lines of Obama's "pivot to Asia," they've been falling all over each other to outdo the US hawks in portraying China as "the bully" and the new "hegemon." Yet no matter how much they can be reasonably excused for their rabble rousing (if not utter stupidity), for the DFA to be caught in such a wrong-footed interpretation of the "counter-measure" reply is just sheer incompetence.
Indeed, the obsequiousness of these pundits and officials inevitably lead to their silliness. Take for instance this report, "Palace welcomes US diplomat's stance against China bullying."

Who was the "diplomat" in question and what the context in which he stated his opinion? Don't be surprised but the story was based on comments made during a US Senate confirmation hearing for the promotion of director for Asian Affairs Danny Russell to Assistant for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, both of which are actually very low posts in the totem pole of the US State Department. His comments were, however, made front page headlines by the local mainstream media.
Chito Sta. Romana observed that the Philippines may now be learning from its past errors of reacting too quickly and too frequently to very low level or even unofficial media, as well as academic opinions that do not reflect official Chinese policy. I guess he was being a bit too optimistic.

There is much disinformation from Western media that we must always sift through. Alunan, already erring in his "counterstrike" retort, even adds, "Despite China's atrocious ownership claims, no proof exists to back it up. From WikiLeaks, Cable 08BEIJING3499, sent to Washington by the US embassy in Beijing on Sept. 9, 2008, (it was) reported that a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) official… could not identify specific historical records to justify China's 'Nine Dashes' claim…"
But as far as the Chinese (Taiwan and People's Republic of China) side is concerned, it is pretty clear that "China's 1948 nine-dash line map shows the sea border… (and that) China's nine-dash line map was undisputed for 50 years from 1948 to 1998…"

So as the legal tit-for-tat continues, mutually beneficial bilateral talks are being blocked by a lone Asean minority and the real lone global hegemonist.
Unfortunately, the seemingly deliberate distortions in Philippine media about China are even bordering on the ridiculous. A column in Manila Standard Today entitled, "Why China needs a war," cited a slew of Chinese domestic concerns, such as an economy on a slump; exports facing hard times; communist rule in peril due to an educated young population; Tiananmen anniversary and "hate frenzy" diverted against Japan; Xinjiang troubles; widespread pollution; bird flu, etc., and that "instead of solving these problems," the writer claims that "China is busy building a mighty army and a blue water navy to bully its neighbors who are disputing its claim over the entire South China Sea."

But China has had the worst of these problems since 1949 and never had to resort to any major war as a solution. As for the other so-called problem — the slump in growth to seven percent — it is definitely a "problem" that other countries would dearly love to have.
China knows it needs a war like a hole in the head. It is actually the US that constantly starts many wars — this time provoking China — in order to thwart the rise of the erstwhile sleeping Dragon.

Some anti-China pundits are desperate to whip up more reasons to fire up Filipino xenophobia against the Chinese, apparently egged on by a Filipino-American woman who had a failed business in and a failed boycott campaign against the Asian superpower. Like the pro-Western Reuters news agency, this anti-Chinese bigot is also taking Filipinos for saps.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on "China, RP, and US hegemonism"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

Lawyer vs IT pros on PCOS

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

7/8/2013

Daily Tribune

The late Philippine computer and information technology pioneer Manuel "Mano" Alcuaz had always insisted that automated elections in the Philippine would only result in "garbage in and garbage out." He argued for precinct level manual elections and counting with open, blackboard tabulation, signed canvass sheets and for any member to be allowed to photograph all these with cellphone cameras. He argued that the Automated Election System (AES) was merely an excuse for massive graft by those contracting the computer soft and hardware suppliers with government officials. Mano accepted automation only for summing up the count digitally and transmission of the data to the municipal, provincial, Comelec and national canvass but backed up by hard copies.

The 3000 member Philippine Computer Society (PCS) still agrees with Mano Alcuaz today. Its president Toti Casiño, confirmed this on my Global News Network public affairs program Talk News TV countless of times. And we have all read and heard the many IT experts from the Ateneo, UP and LaSalle exposing the flawed operations and results of the AES employed by the Comelec and the two Edsa II administrations (Arroyo and BS Aquino). Many countries have already backed away from automated voting and counting, the most frequent example cited is Germany where its Supreme Court banned automated voting and counting as unconstitutional as it could not be transparent. But many others have backed out of automated elections, such as Switzerland and Ireland. Last month found that that Russia is still uses manual voting and counting.

It is to my great disappointment that here in the Philippines some otherwise respected minds have continued to stick to the simpleton's awe for "computerized" and "automated" elections. They echo the argument of other simpletons that such electro-mechanical system eliminates the human factor," "human error" and/or "human deceit," etc. That consternation doubled when I an otherwise intelligent individual I once was awed by, reflect the simpleton view of the Philippine's automated election system.
Lawyer Rene Saguisag in his July 4 column in the Manila Times spoke his mind on the matter, entitled "Automation versus manual? No contest, but let's improve it." No contest? I wondered what Saguisag knows about computers and IT, and what his basis for saying so is.
As is often the case Saguisag's article rambled into tidbits about uncles and personal friends, and frilly stories about his cozy little old Pasig society, and praises as well for anything Cory Aquino. These days under those praises are for BS Aquino for whom he tries to find the little gems in the dung heap of the BS Aquino III governance.
Rene wrote, "I was glad to read that 'Surigao del Norte's income rose by 711.22 percent; poverty declined by 32 percent.' No thanks to P-Noy but genuine People's Initiative, not waiting for Malacañang to move, as kadunongs, pilosopos throw everything at P-Noy." Note that the mining province's increase in income translated to only a little more than 3.5 percent poverty decline. Mineral prices such as nickel can go up but people's income from working in those mineral companies never appreciably do.

Rene adds about critics and dissidents who write, "We columnists know all the answers save that they are contradictory prescriptions by the unelectable." But is the little boy in Malacañang he coddles electable? Cory's own people tell us that Cory Aquino, the mother, found dear little PeNoy unelectable. The promise of Hocus PCOS of 2010 impressed one voting bloc, INC, to announce its swing to the little unelectable and, supported by the manipulated opinion surveys owned by one or another relation or another, gave credence to the PCOS padded election results of 2010 giving an "overwhelming" victory for Rene's darling kid.

Saguisag continued, "…Thanks to automation, there is no more opportunity anywhere for long counts and ballot-snatching or switching." For Saguisag's information the Comelec stopped the opening of canvasses on May 18 and only announced three weeks later, on June 8, that it had completed the last canvass batch. That wasn't as short a time as Saguisag seems to believe for the national canvass. The worst part is that the 60-30-10 template is confirmed even as more data is analyzed by the "kadunongs, pilosopos and hecklers." Now, as reported to us by kadunong Ado Paglinawan, it has been discovered that Grace Poe had already gotten over 20 million votes by the 17th canvass batch. When the last canvass batch which still held almost half of the votes, the little darling of the status quo society had only around 150,000 votes added to her total.

Details of this will soon be made public, casting even more doubt on the 2010 elections. While lawyer Saguisag has not raised a hoot about the incontrovertible violations of law of the AES where he could have played a real role, he insists on promoting "automation" of which he knows nothing about.

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Friday; Destiny Cable, Channel 8, Saturday 8 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m.: "China, RP and US Hegemonism"; visit: http//www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com; text comments to 0923-4095739)

Manila to be a Hong Kong

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

7/3/2013

Daily Tribune

"Ridiculous" would be the first word that one hears from fellow Filipinos when it is ever suggested that Manila could be made into a Hong Kong for the Philippines. 
In fact, when I do try to provoke a reaction to the idea this is exactly the reaction I get. But really, if one looks at the history of Hong Kong since the 50s to what it is today, the allusion to Hong Kong as a parallel for the future development of the City of Manila is not preposterous at all.

In the 50s, the City of Manila was the envy of Asia: the fabled stories of the sunset of Dewey Boulevard and the Manila Hotel, the Quiapo underpass reportedly the first underpass complex in Southeast Asia built by Mayor Arsenio Lacson.

Hong Kong at that time was swamped by tens of thousands of refugees from China reeling from the end of the mainland civil war and dotting the Hong Kong skyline and harbors like Aberdeen, rife government and police corruption persisted until the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) in the 70s. 
The Manila elite flew to Hong Kong for breakfast and returned to Manila for dinner, while the migrants from Hong Kong took up the "dyaryo bote" junk trade to establish themselves in Manila.

Before there was the Hong Kong Ocean Park or the Singapore Jurong Park, Manila Zoo was with its seals, ostriches, elephants, zebras, boa constrictors and the like, enthralled us Baby Boomers as little children. Now Manila Zoo, which I visited just late last week, looks like a dump from the outside and the elephant Mali (its name) is subject of an international animal protection group's campaign to be saved from starvation (though the effort to transplant it would likely kill it instead).

The 50s was the time the Philippine Air Force acrobat air team, the Blue Diamonds, streaked across Luneta's skies when Manila hosted national and regional or international parades, carnivals and events, and Philippine universities hosted the children of Asian royalty who came to study and learn from the Filipino academe.
All that was great about the Philippines was about Manila, but now like the forlorn elephant at the Manila Zoo, Mali, the City of Manila is in a sad state: with a 2010 census population of 1,652,171, the second most populous Philippine city and the most densely populated in the world with 43,079 per square kilometers, according to Wiki, a third of whom are urban poor, squatters fancily called "informal settlers" in Tondo, Baseco, Parola, Isla Puting Bato and other areas working as stevedores, peons, vendors, kalesa drivers, waiters, mall sales girls, security guards, garbage men, laundry women, beat and traffic cops and aides, and jobless job hunters or simply permanent unemployed, ad nausea. Fifty thousands are vendors all over Manila, and many clog the Divisoria main road.

A new city administration has taken over starting July 1st, and the first public demonstration of its intention right after the first flag raising ceremony of the new city government at city hall was the symbolic street sweeping led by President-Mayor Joseph Estrada which was replicated all over the six districts of the City. Sweeping the garbage of the City clean will probably be the easiest task the new city administration will be doing because the rest of the sweeping involves sweeping the graft off of the City's management of the 50,000 vendors', thousands of parking slots, countless public market licensing and daily fees and real estate collection, which have been drastically reduced in the last administration leading to the Commission on Audir report of the City's P3.5-Billion budget deficit.

Being associated with President-Mayor Estrada many Manila residents have texted me about issues they want resolved: One living on Magdalena, now Magsangkay St. hoped the traffic and flooding problems could be solved; a property owner, Greg Licaros, congratulated Estrada for replacing the police chief from the past administration; yet another asked me to lunch to suggest the vision of A New Hong Kong by tapping the huge, huge PROC Chinese business community's very keen interest in investing billions of dollars to help the City of Manila.

It was thought that Hong Kong after the July 1997 turnover from British rule to China would start going downhill but instead it has been China that has allowed Hong Kong's unprecedented prosperity. The New Manila can replicate Hong Kong's feat with China.
The National Government leadership has disastrous relations with China, but the City of Manila should do differently and cultivate constructive and positive relations with China to showcase what good relations can deliver for the Filipino people.
China has been doing this with countless other countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa doubling trade, building infrastructure, extending easy loans, spreading solar power, etc.
It's time the Philippines tap into this for urban housing and industries as Hong Kong and Singapore prioritized.

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Friday; Destiny Cable, Channel 8, Saturday 8 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m.: "Specter: 60 percent foreign ownership of Rural Banks"; visit: http//www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com; text comments to 0923-4095739)

Power income tax, too!

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

7/1/2013

Daily Tribune

Last week, the income tax payments of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS)'s concessionaires being passed on to water consumers became the burning issue of the day. Manila Water and Maynilad were exposed again to be making consumers pay for taxes on what these companies are earning. This provision in the original water concession agreement with each company was signed by Fidel V. Ramos (FVR), which has effectively rendered MWSS regulators helpless, if not totally inutile.

Retrospectively, then, Ramos should be charged in the Ombudsman for this con act. The truth is, water consumers consumed with anger at the unjust P15-billion income tax pass-on should also pour their rage on one person — the supposed Chief Executive BS Aquino, whose office is still the official party to the agreement with the concessionaires.
Mind you. Such income tax pass-on is also continuing in the power sector. Many civic-minded citizens, including consumer activists, who in 2004 helped win the income tax reimbursement from Meralco of around P20 billion (which has yet to be completed), still believe that Meralco's unjust pass-on of its income tax had ceased after the Puno Supreme Court (SC) debunked the position taken by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and Meralco that income tax is in the same vein as "business taxes" like the value-added tax, which can be shouldered by the end user.

Former Chief Justice Renato Puno correctly declared that income tax must be borne by the party that earns the income. And clearly, in the case of such privatized power utilities, these private corporations earn the profits for themselves — neither for the government nor the consuming public. The ERC and Meralco were thus caught with their pants down.
However, right after that historic Puno decision, the ERC went into stealth mode to restore Meralco's pass-on of its income taxes in another roundabout scheme — the Performance Based Regulation (PBR) system. This is how Romeo Junia, one of our fellow power consumer protection advocates, put it in a letter-to-the-editor in 2010:
"PBR has effectively reversed a SC decision disallowing the charging of Meralco's corporate income tax to us. Justice Renato Puno, in that landmark refund order, denied with finality Meralco's 'stubborn stance' to hit us for their taxes. In an issue paper on PBR, however, ERC said: 'If income tax was not considered a recoverable cost, an equivalent revenue outcome (meaning the overcharge — RLJ) could be achieved by allowing a corresponding pre-tax regulatory weighted average cost of capital (WACC) to be earned on the asset base.' This was after ERC realized that openly including income tax as a revenue building block would go against the Court ruling, thus they tucked the item away in WACC, but with the same devastating impact on captive customers."

Who among our over five million Meralco power consumers are aware of every minutiae of such labyrinth rules concocted by the ERC in cahoots with Meralco, based on the powers given it by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001?
Now Meralco's financial statements do indeed declare income tax payments but what is not seen by the public is the "pre-tax regulatory WACC to be earned on the asset base," recovering whatever income tax is to be passed on to consumers even before such is imposed.
For the water concessionaires, MWSS acting chief lawyer Emmanuel Caparas explained at the Water for People Network that I attended last June 29 at the UP Law Center, this WACC equivalent is the Appropriate Discount Rate (ADR) for their capital cost.
When we read "capital" in the financial reports of these privatized utilities, it must be understood that this comes not from the equity of the companies but from the computation of the "regulatory period" rate base, which means that consumers are charged the capital required by these companies for operating and capital expenditures spread over the regulatory period (of four years for power and five years for water).
In effect, all consumers are subsidizing both the private power utilities and water concessionaires! We can therefore describe this as "socialized capitalization" but with "privatization of profits or income."

Ordinary private companies or corporations, big and small, fund capital and operating expenses from equity and loans; but these goddamn lucky private (and supposedly public) utilities are funded by millions of hapless consumers.
Many are still clueless about why we have this onerous system from the privatization of our public utilities. It is really difficult for ordinary folks as well as legitimate entrepreneurs or businessmen, who go by the traditional route of raising their own capital and expending this very frugally and judiciously in the course of operating the business, to comprehend.
Privatized public utilities know nothing of this because their profits go higher the more they escalate the percentage of their so-called capital and operating costs.
Who imposed this privatization program, if not the international financial institutions, in exchange for stand-by loans during FVR and Gloria Arroyo's terms, the last one totaling $800 million after the Edsa II-induced crisis.

The privatized public utilities companies with the sponsorship of the international financial institutions are now dispersing and obfuscating the trail of the capital and wealth the private companies gained form privatization through promotion of "investments" of these companies in other countries.
A food and beverage giant's power and fuel units have put in hefty investments in our North Borneo land-grabbing neighbor, Malaysia; ditto for Meralco in that country and for Vietnam, too.

Clearly, such grave injustice in the privatized public utilities sector cannot be redressed without nationalization of these companies, with all capital and earnings due the consumers restored to them. And this will only happen after the next popular revolution — an outcome hoped for as this nation gradually knocks some sense into its mind and heart.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on "Specter: 60 percent foreign ownership of rural banks"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)