The port scam

The port scam
(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 11-03-2014 MON)

"Manila truck ban knocks Philippines nine notches down World Bank's
Doing Business rank," declared a GMA News Online on Oct. 29 shortly
before noon. Nine hours later, that same site declared, "Philippines
rises 13 spots on WB's revised Doing Business ranking." In between
the two contradictory headlines at midpoint, or at 4:22 in the
afternoon, this was the reaction: "Government downplays Philippines'
slip in WB Doing Business report."

What is evident in the twist and turns of these headlines is the
pliability of the World Bank's reports. Were these the result of
simple PR or other elaborate efforts to portray certain interests in a
better light?

Particularly but not exclusively in the Philippines, government and
business inordinately value image, and generally do cover up unsavory
truth. That's because government and business--Big Business in
particular--are engaged in the sordid abuse of their powers to take
advantage of the nation. But the so-called multilateral institutions,
such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are in on
it too. So to them, perception is all important.

The contradictions in the said news outfit's reportage exposes the WB
as an unreliable source of information because it is similarly subject
to the allures and lobbying of vested interests.

For example, the WB said the Philippines raised its business ranking
by "improvements in... (ease of) getting electricity..." But that is
hardly an issue in this age of countries providing full spectrum
services, especially of power at cheap rates, to get business
investments.

The Arangkada Philippines Project of the Joint Foreign Chambers of
Commerce stated in 2012 that "The very high cost of power remains a
common complaint of businesses ... and a very important negative factor
... In 2010 a factory in the Philippines could pay more than twice as
much for power than a factory in Indonesia and Vietnam and almost
twice as much as a factory in Malaysia and Thailand."

The unwillingness to define the electricity issue correctly becomes
understandable only when one recalls that in 2001 it was the WB that
inveigled the Philippines to pass the Electric Power Industry Reform
Act and its radical privatization program of the state's power assets,
which is the root cause of the "highest power cost in Asia" bedeviling
the Philippines today. High power costs are without doubt the most
fundamental obstacle in the "ease of doing business" in the
Philippines, but the WB can't be expected to expose its own perfidy in
its survey and report. It is the journalist's duty to expose such
duplicity of the WB.

Going back to the first headline: Just four days earlier on Oct. 24
this was presented in another newspaper, "'Port logjam still a
scourge' ... Despite the recent lifting of the truck ban in Manila, the
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said port
congestion remains a major threat to the expansion of the country's
external trade..."

Correlating this with another headline of May 29, which said, "Cargo
traffic rose 4.7 percent in first quarter despite truck ban -- PPA
(Philippine Ports Authority)," it becomes clear that someone is lying
about the truck ban and port congestions connection.

I talked to two port users, both importers, and it became clear to me
that the port congestion problem does not have anything to do with the
Manila truck ban--but has everything to do with the operators in
cahoots with two ruling party leaders (both in the cabinet of BS
Aquino, with one preparing to run in the next presidential race), as
well as port managers sharing the loot from the overtime charges
imposed on shippers, traders, exporters, and importers. Let us wait
for concerned legislators to open a formal investigation.

The question I'd like the public to ask are: 1) who caused the WB
reportage to be "revised" from a "nine-notch" fall to a rise of "13
spots" within nine hours and 2) why the persistence in laying the
blame for port congestion to the truck ban despite official
pronouncements to the contrary.

It is obvious to me that only the well-connected giant players have
both the vested interest, money, and the political clout with the
media, government, and even the WB to get these perfidious results.

If there's any doubt about the WB's capacity to connive with
oligarchs, one should study the exposés of its former officer turned
whistle-blower Karen Hudes on the Internet.

(Listen to 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch
GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel
213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:15 p.m. and replay Sunday,
8:15 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; and
visit http://newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com)