Justice is beyond the courts
(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 01-07-2015 WED)
Monday morning I joined the different Bayan groups in filing the motion to stop the mass transit system fare increases imposed by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC). In an update the day later I was told that the Supreme Court (SC) would convene on January 9 to consider the matter.
The filing of the motion, assisted by the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), was a significant act that succeeded in galvanizing public opinion against the fare hikes. It shed light on the fraudulent claims of government in justifying the fare increases and exposed the scams behind the build-lease-transfer scheme engineered by Philippine finance oligarchs in cahoots with their controlled politicians.
While the TRO on the MRT fare hike is awaiting the SC’s deliberations, another court has decided that the 2013 water rate hikes implemented by the two private water concessionaires for Metro Manila and its environs--acts that were deemed illegal by the water regulatory agency, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) due to disallowed charges to water consumers (such as the corporate income taxes of the two companies)--are to be upheld. This court, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), is the arbitration venue that the two private firms, namely, Maynilad and Manila Water, brought their case to in 2013 and which this column predicted that same year would decide against consumers’ interest.
Water rate hikes for the opening of the year 2015 now consist of a double whammy--the first from the Foreign Currency Differential Adjustment (FCDA) clause of the concession agreements despite the peso strengthening against most currencies (that is, hikes up to P9.12/30 cu. m.) and the second, the 2013 water rate hike upheld by the ICC arbitration court in a decision dated Dec. 29, 2014 as Filipinos were preparing for New Year’s celebrations, announcing that “the Appeals Panel... upheld the alternative rebasing adjustment of Maynilad.” As a result, the company’s stock price went up, and Filipino water consumers will now pay a 9.8-percent increase on P31.28/cu. m.
The other private company’s appeal with the same body is awaiting decision early this year and is expected to favor the water oligarchs again. Manila Water in 2013 proposed a P5.83/cu. m. increase in its basic water charge of P24.57/cu. m., although then it was ordered by MWSS to reduce tariffs by P7.24/cu. m. due to disallowances of many of its expenditures.
All these increases will become retroactive and charged on a “staggered” basis, supposedly to mitigate the negative impact on consumers and the economy. That they have to “stagger” the rate hikes shows that these water companies and the MWSS know how debilitating these increases will be for Filipino households.
The effect of all these rate hikes will be a further erosion of the purchasing power of the Filipino working classes and a dampener to consumer spending on other commodities that would have otherwise fueled a wider base of the productive economy. The little hopes of consumer upticks from the oil price crash dividend would be significantly wiped out by these increases in water and the MRT-LRT fares, and more of the poorest would be alienated from these basic services.
This is simply a suicidal economic policy designed to sate the greed of transnational financial oligarchs, who continue to be fed by the prevailing economic paradigm of privatization and globalization made into law by our legislature.
While the ICC arbitration court has confirmed our prediction that any consumer welfare case raised before it will inevitably lead to defeat and satisfaction of the global financial oligarchy’s interest, the Philippine courts still present an image of reliability.
However, from my experience in raising such issues before the SC, we, consumers, lose 9 out of 10 cases; and the one case we would win would be a Solomonic decision in favor of the oligarchs--such as the December 2013 case of “market manipulation” by a power distributor, which the SC treated only as a “market failure,” with the culprits getting off without even a slap on the wrist.
Still, raising these consumers’ issues before the courts generates enough public interest, raises the level of public consciousness, and prepares us for the next level of collective action that could someday lead to real physical occupation of the political and economic spaces by the people and their genuine avatars.
(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 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 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
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