DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
08/09/10
In the first quarter of 2009, Philippine coconut exports plunged 60 percent whereas total revenues in 2008 reached $1.5 billion. It is thus alarming to note this decline in 2009. Tragically, very little is heard from those in government charged with ensuring that the coconut industry of the Philippines prospers and grows.
I have been involved in the advocacies for the coconut industry for the past several years, seeing it not only as an agricultural commodity with the greatest potential to raise the national per capita income but also as an industrial raw material that can multiply our nation’s income from our 340 million or so coconut trees. If only the country develops all of the Philippine coconut’s potentials in terms of cosme-ceuticals, nutra-ceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals, it may well rival the BPOs in dollar earnings at $10 billion, if not more.
In 2009, I attended a series of meetings of coconut industry and government leaders, where it was once held at the Philippine Coconut Authority (Philcoa). Representatives from the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) and Congress were there, as was the staff of Philcoa — yet the Philcoa head was never around. Rep. Leonardo Montemayor was very active in those meetings. But I never got to see the Philcoa head either in any of the other activities conducted by the coconut sector organizations.
If you ask around today who heads the Philcoa, very few people will be able to give you an answer, unlike in previous administrations where the agency’s administrator was among the most recognizable public figures.
Sadly, an even more significant government coconut agency that has also been led by lackluster characters is the CIIF, which controls the funds of the sector.
We need to revive the public and government’s consciousness about the coconut industry and its bountiful potentials. The first 100 days of the new administration has slowly ticked by yet nothing is heard about its policies for this sector. The coconut sector has already suffered by omission during the inaugural speech and the State of the Nation Address of this new government. It therefore leads many to ask if the PeNoy administration has anybody in its team with coconuts at all.
If they don’t, then it’s high time they get some coconuts: The Philippine Coconut Week’s festivities are slated on Aug. 12 to 15 of this week, and the welfare of 25 million Filipinos directly and indirectly dependent on the coconut industry for livelihood (that’s over 25 percent of the population of 90 million) are staked in the success or failure of this effort to bring the vital issues of the coconut industry to the attention of our national leaders.
As I have written many times before, and discussed in our Global News Network (GNN) show, the coconut tree is a tree of unbounded potentials. Its water is the healthiest natural drink which provides a thousand times more nutrients than sports drinks like Gatorade or Powerade. The Taiwanese and Chinese know this better than many Filipinos; hence, they import our coconuts even at a premium price.
Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) is a fantastic health supplement that neutralizes HIV and, as recently discovered by Western medicine, Alzheimer’s disease. I take VCO every day and have my own adobo formulation where I mix minced garlic, coco vinegar, and calamansi with over three tablespoons of VCO.
I use VCO on my hair as well before bathing, and I am the only one who doesn’t need to use hair dye among 10 siblings.
VCO’s potent health values are well understood, but its popularity has ebbed due to lack of promotion and advertising, as well as, due to deliberate sabotage by Big Pharma in cahoots with some Department of Health authorities.
Other parts of the coconut are also valuable: Its sap produces sugar of the best glycemic quality (30 in the index) for health. Its husks as mattings could have been used in the massive oil gush in the Gulf of Mexico if there had been enough supply, though these are already used to prevent soil erosion and in re-greening desert areas. It is much sought after in cosmetics for the finest oil is provides.
Of even greater potential is the coconut’s industrial and chemical application (even for industrial explosives), which could be produced in the Philippines if basic infrastructure were to be provided.
On Tuesday, Aug. 10, the “Politics (and Economics) Today” episode on GNN will feature a discussion on “Coconut: The Savior Commodity” with coconut sector leaders Sonny Villariba, Gerry Natividad, and Joey Faustino. I call the coconut “the savior commodity” as it has the potential to save the national economy. And unlike BPOs which are a servant industry dependent on the industrial economies, the coconut sector is a production industry and when developed to its fullest promotes economic independence, reduces imports, expands import substitution (such as replacing the $1-billion milk and related imports), multiplies layers of values from processed coconut exports, and builds the domestic industrial and chemical industries.
The potentials of the coconut industry to save the economy and the nation will never be realized if the “same bananas” stay on in the government coconut agencies. This sector needs leadership that knows its coconuts and knows how to use those coconuts.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Destiny Cable Channel 21 about “Coconut: The Savior Commodity” with Phil. coconut industry leaders; visit our new blog, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Monday, August 9, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
RP: Asian power rate champ
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
08/06/2010
The following are the latest comparative power rates in Asia, culled by the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms (Nasecore) in US$/kWh terms, which we presented in our recent Global News Network (GNN) program on the subject, “Meralco Caught Overcharging Again:”
Jakarta 0.06
Shanghai 0.07
Singapore 0.21
Kuala Lumpur 0.06
Tokyo 0.20
Manila 0.23
One of our other guests, former Quezon City Mayor Jun Simon, also culled some additional figures (in US$) from his siblings in North America:
Vancouver 0.07
Los Angeles 0.11
If you are already incensed at the gross disparity, wait till you learn that power rates in the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) franchise area (at P11.98 per kWh) are much higher than those of rest of the country — from Iligan’s P6 per kWh; Cagayan de Oro’s P8; Misamis Oriental’s P7; Cebu’s P7; to Javier, Leyte’s P5.
Dominant player Meralco seems to be of the view that it is exempt from the rule that the higher the sales volume, the lower the price.
Thus, the poverty-stricken Philippines under PeNoy Aquino now has the distinction of having “The Highest Power Rate in Asia,” up from the achievement of Gloria Arroyo over the past nine-and-a-half-years. While Arroyo’s last few months did usher in these highest power rates, these are due to what’s claimed to be simultaneous misfortunes of low water levels in the Luzon hydro-electric dams (resulting from the over-release of water during typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng”) and, strangely, supposed breakdowns or maintenance operations of several power plants in Mindanao.
PeNoy, on the other hand, cannot escape responsibility for this “highest power rate” ignominy primarily because he failed to include in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) a denunciation of the nefarious methods used by Meralco and its rubber stamp public agencies such as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (Wesm) and Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) — with convoluted acronyms designed to confuse — to legalize this price-gouging.
Judging from the 2008 per capita income alone of the three Asian countries with the highest power rates shows how the Philippines’ sore thumb is sticking out. With our highest power rates, our country’s per capita income is only at $1,866; while the second and third placers, Singapore and Japan, are at $38,578 and $39,423, respectively.
Clearly, the Filipinos’ buying power is at least 20 times smaller than the Singaporeans and Japanese. But, even when compared to the industrialized economies of the West, the Philippines still beats them all in terms of power rates — from Brussels’ $0.10/kWh; Paris’ 0.11; Rome’s 0.12; Sydney’s 0.14; to London’s 0.19.
Indeed, RP’s Meralco rate matches Frankfurt’s $0.23/kWh; and only New York ’s $0.29/kWh beats it. But, not to worry, the pending Universal Charge covering “stranded costs” and “stranded debts” to be left on the shoulders of National Power Corp. (Napocor), the taxpayers, and consumers by the successive Yellow regimes’ privatization program can still bring our country’s Meralco rates to the top of the world!
If by any chance the Universal Charge doesn’t make RP’s rates the highest in the world, then the new, perverted rate-setting scheme called the Performance Based Rate (PBR) system, which sets rates based on projected improvements in service to be made by the power utility company, upon which Meralco has already submitted rate hike petitions for 2011 onwards, may just do the trick.
This is the only system we’ve seen where increases in public utility rates are based on “prospective” instead of actual performance. Now Meralco can easily charge its capital requirements for these “prospective” capital expenditures to its hapless consumers, upon approval by the ERC, of course (which is really never denied). Can anybody in the world be luckier than the major owners of Meralco who get their capital from their customers and then charge them the highest rates?
On top of all these, the Commission on Audit sample audit of Meralco found the power distribution company guilty of overcharging by P8 billion in 2004 and P4 billion in 2006. A complete audit from 2001 to the present should therefore be demanded. This is precisely why Nasecore, in coordination with Jun Simon, filed petitions for the overcharging already identified to be refunded to the public.
Simon started this advocacy after years of my trying to enlighten him on the issue, as well as further education from Mr. Pete Ilagan in the past few months. The joint effort of the two started when Nasecore suddenly lost its five NGO-funded lawyers when the petition against Meralco was about to be filed. Fortunately, Simon found more committed volunteer lawyers who are convinced of the righteousness and absolute victory of this cause.
Even though Simon campaigned for PeNoy and is widely believed to be one of those awaiting government appointments, he says he is just sticking to advocacy work from here on. During our GNN interview, I needled him about the failure of PeNoy’s Sona to raise these issues of the exploitation, profiteering and manipulation of the power oligarchs while clearly and unjustly making Napocor the scapegoat. Simon asked for time for the administration to address the issue.
Though I didn’t want to make Simon any more uncomfortable about it, the failure of PeNoy to call the oligarchs and their rampant and manipulated predatory rate hikes is really a fundamental anti-people and anti-consumer crime.
Giving more time is really just postponing the inevitable: Joining and championing the revolt against the oligarchs.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our new blog, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
08/06/2010
The following are the latest comparative power rates in Asia, culled by the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms (Nasecore) in US$/kWh terms, which we presented in our recent Global News Network (GNN) program on the subject, “Meralco Caught Overcharging Again:”
Jakarta 0.06
Shanghai 0.07
Singapore 0.21
Kuala Lumpur 0.06
Tokyo 0.20
Manila 0.23
One of our other guests, former Quezon City Mayor Jun Simon, also culled some additional figures (in US$) from his siblings in North America:
Vancouver 0.07
Los Angeles 0.11
If you are already incensed at the gross disparity, wait till you learn that power rates in the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) franchise area (at P11.98 per kWh) are much higher than those of rest of the country — from Iligan’s P6 per kWh; Cagayan de Oro’s P8; Misamis Oriental’s P7; Cebu’s P7; to Javier, Leyte’s P5.
Dominant player Meralco seems to be of the view that it is exempt from the rule that the higher the sales volume, the lower the price.
Thus, the poverty-stricken Philippines under PeNoy Aquino now has the distinction of having “The Highest Power Rate in Asia,” up from the achievement of Gloria Arroyo over the past nine-and-a-half-years. While Arroyo’s last few months did usher in these highest power rates, these are due to what’s claimed to be simultaneous misfortunes of low water levels in the Luzon hydro-electric dams (resulting from the over-release of water during typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng”) and, strangely, supposed breakdowns or maintenance operations of several power plants in Mindanao.
PeNoy, on the other hand, cannot escape responsibility for this “highest power rate” ignominy primarily because he failed to include in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) a denunciation of the nefarious methods used by Meralco and its rubber stamp public agencies such as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (Wesm) and Philippine Electricity Market Corp. (PEMC) — with convoluted acronyms designed to confuse — to legalize this price-gouging.
Judging from the 2008 per capita income alone of the three Asian countries with the highest power rates shows how the Philippines’ sore thumb is sticking out. With our highest power rates, our country’s per capita income is only at $1,866; while the second and third placers, Singapore and Japan, are at $38,578 and $39,423, respectively.
Clearly, the Filipinos’ buying power is at least 20 times smaller than the Singaporeans and Japanese. But, even when compared to the industrialized economies of the West, the Philippines still beats them all in terms of power rates — from Brussels’ $0.10/kWh; Paris’ 0.11; Rome’s 0.12; Sydney’s 0.14; to London’s 0.19.
Indeed, RP’s Meralco rate matches Frankfurt’s $0.23/kWh; and only New York ’s $0.29/kWh beats it. But, not to worry, the pending Universal Charge covering “stranded costs” and “stranded debts” to be left on the shoulders of National Power Corp. (Napocor), the taxpayers, and consumers by the successive Yellow regimes’ privatization program can still bring our country’s Meralco rates to the top of the world!
If by any chance the Universal Charge doesn’t make RP’s rates the highest in the world, then the new, perverted rate-setting scheme called the Performance Based Rate (PBR) system, which sets rates based on projected improvements in service to be made by the power utility company, upon which Meralco has already submitted rate hike petitions for 2011 onwards, may just do the trick.
This is the only system we’ve seen where increases in public utility rates are based on “prospective” instead of actual performance. Now Meralco can easily charge its capital requirements for these “prospective” capital expenditures to its hapless consumers, upon approval by the ERC, of course (which is really never denied). Can anybody in the world be luckier than the major owners of Meralco who get their capital from their customers and then charge them the highest rates?
On top of all these, the Commission on Audit sample audit of Meralco found the power distribution company guilty of overcharging by P8 billion in 2004 and P4 billion in 2006. A complete audit from 2001 to the present should therefore be demanded. This is precisely why Nasecore, in coordination with Jun Simon, filed petitions for the overcharging already identified to be refunded to the public.
Simon started this advocacy after years of my trying to enlighten him on the issue, as well as further education from Mr. Pete Ilagan in the past few months. The joint effort of the two started when Nasecore suddenly lost its five NGO-funded lawyers when the petition against Meralco was about to be filed. Fortunately, Simon found more committed volunteer lawyers who are convinced of the righteousness and absolute victory of this cause.
Even though Simon campaigned for PeNoy and is widely believed to be one of those awaiting government appointments, he says he is just sticking to advocacy work from here on. During our GNN interview, I needled him about the failure of PeNoy’s Sona to raise these issues of the exploitation, profiteering and manipulation of the power oligarchs while clearly and unjustly making Napocor the scapegoat. Simon asked for time for the administration to address the issue.
Though I didn’t want to make Simon any more uncomfortable about it, the failure of PeNoy to call the oligarchs and their rampant and manipulated predatory rate hikes is really a fundamental anti-people and anti-consumer crime.
Giving more time is really just postponing the inevitable: Joining and championing the revolt against the oligarchs.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our new blog, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Monday, August 2, 2010
The MRT in PeNoy's Wonderland
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
08/02/2010
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” — Alice, Alice in Wonderland.
When I hear PeNoy and his spokes-platoon I am pulled into the vortex of Lewis Carroll’s topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland world. PeNoy’s Sona speech was a walk through a “House of Mirrors” twisting images of the real world. On electricity rates gouging, he reported it as stemming from National Power Corp. (Napocor), we showed incontrovertibly that it's the devious privatization program, the Epira which privatized Napocor’s profit centers and its profits to private corporations, while it nationalized and socialized Napocor’s costs and debts. He also discussed the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and its financial and fare subsidy problem, in another Alice in Wonderland storytelling:
PeNoy’s Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) secretary and Lopez gofer, Jose “Ping” de Jesus, has been jawing about how much MRT commuters are being subsidized by government. It’s made to appear that the commuters must feel guilty about this subsidy and expect the pain of an MRT fare hike. De Jesus says the subsidy is P40 per commuter, which means there could be up to P40 additional to today’s fares — or a 200 percent increase! I feel they are just raising the ante to P40 so when the real increase comes of 25 percent or 50 percent, the commuters will sigh in relief and welcome it. But the truth is, many commuters just won’t be able to afford any increase at all — which can mean students not being able to go to school, more workers downtime, less load on the MRT which will mean bigger losses for government again.
How did the MRT go so badly? The so-called investors in the MRT projects, the oligarchs, supposedly raised equities and loans of around $660-million for a total of P22-billion — but all these were taken out on the back of the “sovereign guarantee” of the Philippine government, i.e. the Filipino people and taxpayers; government also provided a 15 percent guaranteed profit to the investors. The investors also got: 1) a quantum increase in real estate values of these so-called investors, 2) the humongous increase in “captive” sales to these investors in their malls and commercial centers where the MRT stations are diverted to (remember the controversy with the Ayalas, which forced the MRT station on its intersection though this is a most inappropriate area), 3) they also got all the advertising values, and 4) the “right-of-way” on Edsa for nothing!
The financial hemorrhage of the MRT started from the drafting of the contract between the so called investors, Metro Rail Transit Corp., and the Philippine government. It was concluded under the notorious BOT-manic President Fidel Ramos. The terms were onerous, one-sided and adverse to the public interest from the very beginning. The guaranteed 15 percent profit was computed on the basis of an overpriced far, over-estimated traffic volume. There was no way the MRT could even break even with these conditions. Why did FVR and the DoTC then allow 15 percent profit, why not demand 5 percent or 3 percent since this is guaranteed anyway; but the corporate and bureaucratic swindlers’ wiles and greed knows no bounds. All other public mass transit systems in the world are planned on the basis of public service and as a component of the overall economy, and not for profit.
PeNoy and his Cabinet men are making it appear that “subsidy” for the people is a problematic thing, but they seem to think nothing wrong in subsidizing the oligarchs behind the MRT swindle. They are even insinuating that the lowering of the MRT fares in 1998, which was ordered by President Joseph Estrada, to be an error that caused the MRT’s financial problems. Truth is, practically no one was using the MRT in 1997 because of the exorbitant rates the investors set. Commuters started streaming into the train carriages only after Estrada lowered it because they could finally afford the fares. Over 10 years later, through convoluted arguments the private MRT owners in cahoots with a corrupt government and a clueless administrator retired from the PNP, finagled a buy-back from government funded by the DBP and Land Bank for P2.5 billion.
The PeNoy government and mainstream media are waylaying the public with Alice in Wonderland depictions: “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’” (Through the Looking Glass) Who is subsidizing whom? In PeNoy’s World, it is clear the oligarchs are the masters. For us, the people’s welfare should rule. Justice William O. Douglas, referring to the US, copied by the Philippine elite: “Our upside down welfare state is ‘socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.’ ‘The great welfare scandal of the age concerns the dole we give rich people.’”
(Tune to Sulo ng Pilipino, M-W-F 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday 8 to 9 p.m., Global News Network, Destiny Cable, Channel 21: “Meralco overcharging since 2007” and other power issues, with former Mayor Jun Simon and Nasecor’s Pete Ilagan; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
08/02/2010
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” — Alice, Alice in Wonderland.
When I hear PeNoy and his spokes-platoon I am pulled into the vortex of Lewis Carroll’s topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland world. PeNoy’s Sona speech was a walk through a “House of Mirrors” twisting images of the real world. On electricity rates gouging, he reported it as stemming from National Power Corp. (Napocor), we showed incontrovertibly that it's the devious privatization program, the Epira which privatized Napocor’s profit centers and its profits to private corporations, while it nationalized and socialized Napocor’s costs and debts. He also discussed the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and its financial and fare subsidy problem, in another Alice in Wonderland storytelling:
PeNoy’s Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) secretary and Lopez gofer, Jose “Ping” de Jesus, has been jawing about how much MRT commuters are being subsidized by government. It’s made to appear that the commuters must feel guilty about this subsidy and expect the pain of an MRT fare hike. De Jesus says the subsidy is P40 per commuter, which means there could be up to P40 additional to today’s fares — or a 200 percent increase! I feel they are just raising the ante to P40 so when the real increase comes of 25 percent or 50 percent, the commuters will sigh in relief and welcome it. But the truth is, many commuters just won’t be able to afford any increase at all — which can mean students not being able to go to school, more workers downtime, less load on the MRT which will mean bigger losses for government again.
How did the MRT go so badly? The so-called investors in the MRT projects, the oligarchs, supposedly raised equities and loans of around $660-million for a total of P22-billion — but all these were taken out on the back of the “sovereign guarantee” of the Philippine government, i.e. the Filipino people and taxpayers; government also provided a 15 percent guaranteed profit to the investors. The investors also got: 1) a quantum increase in real estate values of these so-called investors, 2) the humongous increase in “captive” sales to these investors in their malls and commercial centers where the MRT stations are diverted to (remember the controversy with the Ayalas, which forced the MRT station on its intersection though this is a most inappropriate area), 3) they also got all the advertising values, and 4) the “right-of-way” on Edsa for nothing!
The financial hemorrhage of the MRT started from the drafting of the contract between the so called investors, Metro Rail Transit Corp., and the Philippine government. It was concluded under the notorious BOT-manic President Fidel Ramos. The terms were onerous, one-sided and adverse to the public interest from the very beginning. The guaranteed 15 percent profit was computed on the basis of an overpriced far, over-estimated traffic volume. There was no way the MRT could even break even with these conditions. Why did FVR and the DoTC then allow 15 percent profit, why not demand 5 percent or 3 percent since this is guaranteed anyway; but the corporate and bureaucratic swindlers’ wiles and greed knows no bounds. All other public mass transit systems in the world are planned on the basis of public service and as a component of the overall economy, and not for profit.
PeNoy and his Cabinet men are making it appear that “subsidy” for the people is a problematic thing, but they seem to think nothing wrong in subsidizing the oligarchs behind the MRT swindle. They are even insinuating that the lowering of the MRT fares in 1998, which was ordered by President Joseph Estrada, to be an error that caused the MRT’s financial problems. Truth is, practically no one was using the MRT in 1997 because of the exorbitant rates the investors set. Commuters started streaming into the train carriages only after Estrada lowered it because they could finally afford the fares. Over 10 years later, through convoluted arguments the private MRT owners in cahoots with a corrupt government and a clueless administrator retired from the PNP, finagled a buy-back from government funded by the DBP and Land Bank for P2.5 billion.
The PeNoy government and mainstream media are waylaying the public with Alice in Wonderland depictions: “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’” (Through the Looking Glass) Who is subsidizing whom? In PeNoy’s World, it is clear the oligarchs are the masters. For us, the people’s welfare should rule. Justice William O. Douglas, referring to the US, copied by the Philippine elite: “Our upside down welfare state is ‘socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.’ ‘The great welfare scandal of the age concerns the dole we give rich people.’”
(Tune to Sulo ng Pilipino, M-W-F 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday 8 to 9 p.m., Global News Network, Destiny Cable, Channel 21: “Meralco overcharging since 2007” and other power issues, with former Mayor Jun Simon and Nasecor’s Pete Ilagan; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
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