DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/6/2013
My youngest are twins. One is in Philosophy in DLSU who has delayed his graduation this year by taking fewer units, opting to work part-time. The other is a graduate of Journalism from UST and is already job-hunting while helping out in the family business. Deciding on either of their prospects has not been easy as starting pays don't look attractive. Having started driving regularly of late, the latter of my twins went along with me to my grocery trip a few days ago. While I was paying at the check-out counter, he scanned the bill and exclaimed, "How could these few things cost over a thousand?" Perhaps because he's now earning an allowance tending to one of the family's stores, he's beginning to understand the economic angst I've always discussed with the family over meals and how everyone should be ready to cope with harder times.
One recent headline reflects the worsening economic prospects ahead. Coming out on Labor Day, the report entitled, "Joblessness increases," centered on the recent jobs data culled by survey firm Social Weather Stations (SWS), which indicated that "Unemployment has picked up anew after an improvement seen at the end of last year… with one million more Filipinos joining the ranks of the jobless. At 25.4 percent, unemployment among Filipinos at least 18 years old was higher than December's 24.6 percent…" And the joblessness reports, particularly with respect to new labor entrants, just keep piling up.
Still, my journalism graduate son is undeterred. Seeking a job in reporting or writing, he apparently wants to prove that his skills can be of use in the market place. Indeed, after months of searching, he seems confident of landing a job in a transnational headhunting firm. His twin brother, meanwhile, is tending to their eldest brother's bar and is earning an income even if less than the minimum wage. As such, one of the frequent issues in our family's discussions is the electricity bill, particularly the use of air-conditioning units in the twins' separate rooms. With the first billing this summer doubling from the same period last year, awareness of the high power cost has finally seeped into the consciousness of all members of the family.
I am therefore no longer alone in my obsession to keep power cost tamed by turning off the lights whenever leaving any room and the sala; Or quitting the use of the water pressure pump for showers, opting for the tabo instead; Or sharing a single air-conditioner for two instead of going solo in one's room.
Indeed, the power price crisis is not going to go away even if the artificial power shortages created by the ruling powers are halted by everyone's (including the Mindanaoans') capitulation to the blackmail of using coal-fired plants instead of cheap hydroelectric power, under an abusive regime of the 17-percent so-called Performance Based Regulation and the privatization-mad Electric Power Industry Reform Act where power companies of all stripes get to enjoy ridiculously humongous profits.
If labor groups and trade federations were powerless in extracting even paltry concessions from BS Aquino III (as is traditionally expected on Labor Day), what other reason should the ruling capitalist foreign powers and their local partners have in shunning their mercilessness toward Filipinos, whose nation's wealth they have long extracted in support of the West's failing economies?
By the way, the SWS jobs survey also indicated that jobseekers are still hoping for a better future — even if such perennial hope remains unfulfilled. And even after two ballyhooed Philippine ratings upgrades (the last from Standard and Poor's), the usual mainstream media (such as Bloomberg) obligatorily feature shallow headlines such as "Philippines beats Indonesia in gaining S&P investment grade," while deliberately skirting a real economic indicator — foreign direct investment (FDI) — that shows an appalling negative for the Philippines. From Indonesia Investments: "'Domestic and Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia Grows Strong in Q1-2013' … US $9.58-B;" while for Philippine business news, it was "'FDI drops almost 50 percent to $576 million in January (2013)'… lower than the previous year level of $1.1 billion…"
According to Wikipedia, Indonesian electricity price (in US dollar terms) is $0.0875 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) while the Philippines is at $0.3046/kWh. Despite FDI being a real measure of a country's economic prospects, reflecting the assessment of foreign and local businesses (not the subjective views of governments) and despite the holding of elections in a week's time, the Philippines will still not see any improvement as no candidate of consequence has dared raise this issue of power rate-gouging. Hopefully, though, a few will go out on a limb and start taking up the matter as it is a life-or-death issue for the Philippine economy and for our children's prospects for a good, productive and happy future.
But frankly, I'm not optimistic. As Western powers desperate for war will stop at nothing to recapture their former glory, there is just nowhere to run. Thus, I'm preparing my mountain redoubt farm cum social laboratory, concentrating mainly on coconuts (which, after a long study, are a far superior economic investment to mangoes) cross-cropped with coffee, cacao, macadamia nuts and orange camote. It's a long-term project I can leave my grandchildren as a refuge in the really perilous decades ahead and a teaching laboratory for all to learn how to grow food and stay free and dignified in the looming Dark Age.
(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., on "Hopeless elections: Looking for revolution"; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
