TOPIC: EDSA Tres Revisited
Guests: Ronald Lumbao of People's Movement Against Poverty and Jose Luis "Linggoy" Alcuaz
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Power scammers riding high
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/27/2011
While the nation gets distracted by debates on the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, the oligarchs and their foreign partners continue to ride high on the 10-year-old Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) — responsible for making RP’s electricity rates the highest in Asia and now poised to raise these further to soaring atmospheric heights. The past week alone, three major news items already escaped the public’s attention: First, we have the Energy Regulatory Commission-backed “renewable rates” for solar and wind power. Passed by an idiotic Congress via Republic Act 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 upon the badgering of foreign and local energy lobbyists and the oligarchy-controlled media, the measure is now in the final stages of implementation. With the formulation of the feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable power that will be transmitted through the National Grid (read: “Greed”) Corp. of the Philippines, such a mix of traditional and renewable power sources will definitely spell an increase on our already high generation cost.
Proponents argue that we have to develop renewables sooner or later; but with the premature enforcement of this program when solar and wind are still grossly inefficient in energy conversion, we will be adding to the already exorbitant burden not only of consumers but also of the industrial sector where many companies have left for countries with lower power costs.
Our media, environmentalist NGOs and legislators are either dupes or have been corrupted by various incentives — from direct lobby money to advertising budgets, as well as travel and NGO grants — to still be singing praises for this.
Filipino consumers and industries will be made to subsidize renewable energy development when this is supposed to be shouldered by foreign supplying companies that have tie-ups with local Big Business groups.
I have rallied on the past two decades against the disinformation spread by mainstream media and foreign-funded environmental NGOs; but even an unlikely voice in the person of World Bank consultant Leonardo Lupano has warned that the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) overseeing the program and FIT rates “must be very careful in setting installation targets especially for the higher-cost technologies like wind and solar… (as) Spain had to drastically reduce the solar FIT rates and institute caps when 3 GW of solar was installed within one year.”
Lupano adds, “The impact on Spain ’s electricity rates was very high. Korea also experienced similar problems. Even German consumers are complaining that they subsidized the development of solar technology with high FITs, but China (the source of solar panels) is reaping the fruits… Ontario had to resort to every procedural trick in the book to slow down the approval of solar applications. NREB would (thus want) to avoid similar problems in the Philippines…”
But typical of the insensitivity of government bureaucrats feigning blindness to the plunder of power consumers, Bert Dalusong, former head of the NREB technical working group said that “…the P19 per kilowatt hour FIT rate being asked by the renewable energy developers is still cheaper than the price of diesel on the spot market, which could rise to as high as P30 per kWh.” But why compare with diesel when hydro is as low as P1 per kWh, as in Mindanao’s Agus and Pulangi, and geothermal ranges from P0.92 to P2.31 per kWh?
Second, there is the National Power Corp. (Napocor) May 12 rate hike petition of P0.2759 per kWh for one year, on top of the current P0.0454 per kWh universal charge for missionary electrification for the “off-grid service” in what it claims to be unrecovered P17 billion incurred over the years since Epira was passed. Reports state that the “adjustment will be used to ‘augment current financial requirements and in order to settle pending obligations with fuel and other suppliers which will enable NPC-SPUG (Napocor-Small Power Utilities Group) to shore up its financial situation.’”
What does Napocor think of us consumers, its perennial milking cow and piggy bank? But, as if this wasn’t enough, the state firm also wants to tap “restricted accounts normally used to settle court cases” for bridge financing.
Napocor is barred by a ruling of the Department of Justice from engaging in further borrowings and fund-raising activities such as bond issuances. Despite this, the company says it will even push through with its layoff of 600 to 700 employees, which means more separation pays.
Finally, the third item is thanks to a congresswoman of the “other” Kamag-anak Inc. who has chosen to do her worn-out “Person for Others” bit by generously sharing our hard earned (and even harder budgeted) money to pay for the power subsidies to the poor that they “love.” It appears Dina Abad, Ben Evardone, and some other legislators want to make more previously middle class power consumers join the ranks of the poor by certifying the bill amending the Epira as urgent, extending the lifeline rate paid for by the shrinking middle class (that can hardly afford the current power rates) — scheduled to end on June 26, 2011 — by another 10 years!
Abad, chairman of the House appropriations committee, certainly knows how to appropriate public money, just as her colleagues did in the CodeNGO PeaceBonds scam, and are doing now with the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) con game, and soon, we heard, in the government-funded “volunteer” housing construction program that the said NGO network is wresting away from Gawad Kalinga. Oh, when will we be spared of this Yellow ilk’s “goodness” toward society’s poor? Time to expose all these scammers for good.
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “More Power Scams”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/27/2011
While the nation gets distracted by debates on the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, the oligarchs and their foreign partners continue to ride high on the 10-year-old Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) — responsible for making RP’s electricity rates the highest in Asia and now poised to raise these further to soaring atmospheric heights. The past week alone, three major news items already escaped the public’s attention: First, we have the Energy Regulatory Commission-backed “renewable rates” for solar and wind power. Passed by an idiotic Congress via Republic Act 9513 or the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 upon the badgering of foreign and local energy lobbyists and the oligarchy-controlled media, the measure is now in the final stages of implementation. With the formulation of the feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable power that will be transmitted through the National Grid (read: “Greed”) Corp. of the Philippines, such a mix of traditional and renewable power sources will definitely spell an increase on our already high generation cost.
Proponents argue that we have to develop renewables sooner or later; but with the premature enforcement of this program when solar and wind are still grossly inefficient in energy conversion, we will be adding to the already exorbitant burden not only of consumers but also of the industrial sector where many companies have left for countries with lower power costs.
Our media, environmentalist NGOs and legislators are either dupes or have been corrupted by various incentives — from direct lobby money to advertising budgets, as well as travel and NGO grants — to still be singing praises for this.
Filipino consumers and industries will be made to subsidize renewable energy development when this is supposed to be shouldered by foreign supplying companies that have tie-ups with local Big Business groups.
I have rallied on the past two decades against the disinformation spread by mainstream media and foreign-funded environmental NGOs; but even an unlikely voice in the person of World Bank consultant Leonardo Lupano has warned that the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) overseeing the program and FIT rates “must be very careful in setting installation targets especially for the higher-cost technologies like wind and solar… (as) Spain had to drastically reduce the solar FIT rates and institute caps when 3 GW of solar was installed within one year.”
Lupano adds, “The impact on Spain ’s electricity rates was very high. Korea also experienced similar problems. Even German consumers are complaining that they subsidized the development of solar technology with high FITs, but China (the source of solar panels) is reaping the fruits… Ontario had to resort to every procedural trick in the book to slow down the approval of solar applications. NREB would (thus want) to avoid similar problems in the Philippines…”
But typical of the insensitivity of government bureaucrats feigning blindness to the plunder of power consumers, Bert Dalusong, former head of the NREB technical working group said that “…the P19 per kilowatt hour FIT rate being asked by the renewable energy developers is still cheaper than the price of diesel on the spot market, which could rise to as high as P30 per kWh.” But why compare with diesel when hydro is as low as P1 per kWh, as in Mindanao’s Agus and Pulangi, and geothermal ranges from P0.92 to P2.31 per kWh?
Second, there is the National Power Corp. (Napocor) May 12 rate hike petition of P0.2759 per kWh for one year, on top of the current P0.0454 per kWh universal charge for missionary electrification for the “off-grid service” in what it claims to be unrecovered P17 billion incurred over the years since Epira was passed. Reports state that the “adjustment will be used to ‘augment current financial requirements and in order to settle pending obligations with fuel and other suppliers which will enable NPC-SPUG (Napocor-Small Power Utilities Group) to shore up its financial situation.’”
What does Napocor think of us consumers, its perennial milking cow and piggy bank? But, as if this wasn’t enough, the state firm also wants to tap “restricted accounts normally used to settle court cases” for bridge financing.
Napocor is barred by a ruling of the Department of Justice from engaging in further borrowings and fund-raising activities such as bond issuances. Despite this, the company says it will even push through with its layoff of 600 to 700 employees, which means more separation pays.
Finally, the third item is thanks to a congresswoman of the “other” Kamag-anak Inc. who has chosen to do her worn-out “Person for Others” bit by generously sharing our hard earned (and even harder budgeted) money to pay for the power subsidies to the poor that they “love.” It appears Dina Abad, Ben Evardone, and some other legislators want to make more previously middle class power consumers join the ranks of the poor by certifying the bill amending the Epira as urgent, extending the lifeline rate paid for by the shrinking middle class (that can hardly afford the current power rates) — scheduled to end on June 26, 2011 — by another 10 years!
Abad, chairman of the House appropriations committee, certainly knows how to appropriate public money, just as her colleagues did in the CodeNGO PeaceBonds scam, and are doing now with the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) con game, and soon, we heard, in the government-funded “volunteer” housing construction program that the said NGO network is wresting away from Gawad Kalinga. Oh, when will we be spared of this Yellow ilk’s “goodness” toward society’s poor? Time to expose all these scammers for good.
(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “More Power Scams”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Angsioco, Damaso and DSK
CRITIC'S CRITIC
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/23-29/2011
The critics commentaries on the RH bill is reaching a crescendo and while new topic, the sexual assault case against IMF’s chief DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) is catching the attention of many newspapers columnists of many newspapers columnists, but most of these opinion writers miss the heart of the issue and fail to enlighten the public.
We’ll start with Elizabeth Angsioco of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (apparently a branch of Bert Gonzales and Jesuit Archie Intengan’s PDSP) whose twopart article “Damaso and ovaries” appeared in the Manila Standard sometime April and is one of the popular expressions of the pro-RH bill that has come out and appears frequently in Internet discussions.
I commented on Angsioco’s title in a recent OpinYon column of mine pointing out the highly picturesque and effective title she used in her article. But now that the climax of the debate is nearing, I take the opportunity to evaluate the content of her article. I have found it to be vacuous except for the hysterics.
A Maria Clara or a Josephine Bracken?
Angsioco raged against the Damasos for using the pulpit to harangue against the RH bill, the anti-RH ordinances of Barangay Ayala Alabang and seven Bataan barangays, and Mayor of Manila Alfredo Lim’s city programs of family planning that is limited to the natural methods but nothing on the issues that the RH bill itself represents.
At the end of her two-part article she states: “I dressed up as Maria Clara and handed out condoms and he was in a barong. People were more than slightly amused by the idea and started having their pictures taken with us.”
I would be amused too if Maria Clara, the quintessential conservative and traditional Filipino who would use the abaniko as Muslim women use the burqa to hide their “evil” feminine allures, were used as a poster woman for the contraceptives and condoms crusade because that’s totally inappropriate.
Josephine Bracken would have been the only appropriate Philippine historical female to represent women’s liberation.
The woman’s rage of Angsiaco is a shrill and hysterical as the eunuch-y fits and frenzy of the Damasos, with the latter calling pro-RH advocates “terrorists” and the former considering anybody questioning the RH bill as anti-women’s rights bigots.
Women’s Rights
I wonder if Angsioco or many of the other pro-RH advocates, crusaders and lobbyists have even read the many versions of the RH bill.
If they did they’d discover that there is nothing in it that changes any basic women’s right to their own body, as they argue today, or their ovaries.
All Filipino women’s rights are already robustly protected by the Magna Carta for Women passed on August 14, 2009 by the previous Congress.
None of the updated RH bills is even attempting to change the present status of the law’s abhorrence of abortion as most pro-RH bill crusaders themselves recoil from the idea of a blanket de-criminalization of abortion which is inherently reprehensible.
Nobody but the Catholic Church issues edicts against the use of birth control devices and pills, but who follows the Church among the women’s flock these days?
Mythical Poverty vs Population
The Malthusian argument that population robustness equals poverty is inane, as a simple comparison easily shows: Japan, with a population of around 130 million (the 10th largest in the world), has a per capita income of $35,500 while the Philippines, with a population of around 94 million (ranking 12th in the world), has a per capita income of only $2,000.
Before the 2010 elections, where the previous lameduck government’s spending-inflated GDP “growth” became the basis for this latest estimate by some economists, ours even hovered lower at around $1,500 to $1,700 per capita.
The point is, the pro-RH proponents’ propaganda, based on an imaginary correlation between poverty and population, is hogwash (as Nobel prizewinning economist Simon Kuznets work demonstrated)--characteristic of the pigsty that is Congress, more so when spewed from the mouths of the usual pro-FVR-Gloria Arroyo porkers.
Veiled Pecuniary Interests
The real issue in the RH bill is Big Pharma and political pork barrel feeders’ disguised pecuniary interests: providing subsidies to purchase and distribute for free as “essential” medications and devices such contraceptive and condoms, hundreds of RH supplied “vans” politicos can skim from and put their names on, amounting to at least P3 billion clearly described in the RH bill plus untold billions mandated by the bill that others agencies such as PhilHealth, Presidential Anti-Poverty Commission, Pop- Com, etc. must extend to the RH program which is estimated to top P10 Billion per annum, and that such budgets included in the RH bill when it becomes law “shall be” provided for in succeeding National Budget that is tantamount to “automatic appropriations”.
All these subsidies when there has never even been a specific allocation for real killer diseases such as TB, dengue, and many other illnesses.
And they can’t even have a kind word for MRT/LRT working and wage earning commuters who are seeking a mere P4-5billion fare “subsidy” which come from their VAT and income taxes, anyway.
The Damaso’s and Angsioco’s hysterics do not benefit the public debate, they only obfuscate and obscure allowing the Big Pharma (that’s why Fidel V. Ramos is there, for the Carlyle group with billions investments in contraceptives and condoms) and political porkers to slip their greed past the people’s scrutiny.
Enemies in High Places
As for l’affaire Dominique Strauss Kahn, disgraced IMF chief, what is the full story?
We all love a scandal story of the big and powerful and assuming their guilt is tempting. But I pulled the reins when Strauss Kahn was denied bail and then placed in solitary confinement, virtually incommunicado.
Could this be a “honey trap” case? Strauss-Kahn has enemies in high places: frontrunning candidate of the French Socialist Party against the sinking French President Sarkozy, a man of the global oligarchs and war coalition, caught in his stalemated Libya Attack amidst a worsening French economy.
Center for Research on Globalization’s Mike Whitney writes: “… Strauss-Kahn was trying to move the bank in … a direction that didn’t require that countries leave their economies open to the ravages of foreign capital … leaving behind the scourge of high unemployment, plunging demand, hobbled industries …. that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries ...
“Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the bankers and corporatists …”
Exposés in the Business Circa
Reviewing the reactions from opinion writers in Philippine newspapers I found the following commentaries reflecting one-dimensional neoliberal, limited comprehension of the deeper geo-political and economic issues at stake: Business World’s “Calling a spade” by Solita Monsod, “Lessons on rule of law” describing her admiration for how the New York City law enforcers implemented its mandate without fear nor favor; but the view from those who critical watch the powerful globalists who control Wall Street and the US have this view, from Paul Craig Roberts, “The Strauss Kahn Frame- Up: the American Police State Strides Forward” exposing the true picture of the US as the title depicts – a police state ultimately in the service of the financial oligarchy.
This same thing happened to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer who tried to prosecute Wall Street’s Big Finance prior to the 2008 crash and he found his call girl affairs exposed and himself arrested to stop his investigations.
Veteran business columnist Tony Lopez had a more balanced view of the scandal, while Randy David in his Inquirer column “Public Lives” went into a Freudian analysis missing the real import in the global financial, economic and political scene of the Strauss- Kahn event.
(Tune to 1098AM, Radyo OpinYon Mon to Fri 5-6m, and Sulo M-W-F, 6 to 7 p.m. ; GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, TNT with HTL, Tuesdays, 8-9 p.m., replay 11 p.m.; visit http:// newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our radio and GNN shows)
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/23-29/2011
The critics commentaries on the RH bill is reaching a crescendo and while new topic, the sexual assault case against IMF’s chief DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) is catching the attention of many newspapers columnists of many newspapers columnists, but most of these opinion writers miss the heart of the issue and fail to enlighten the public.
We’ll start with Elizabeth Angsioco of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (apparently a branch of Bert Gonzales and Jesuit Archie Intengan’s PDSP) whose twopart article “Damaso and ovaries” appeared in the Manila Standard sometime April and is one of the popular expressions of the pro-RH bill that has come out and appears frequently in Internet discussions.
I commented on Angsioco’s title in a recent OpinYon column of mine pointing out the highly picturesque and effective title she used in her article. But now that the climax of the debate is nearing, I take the opportunity to evaluate the content of her article. I have found it to be vacuous except for the hysterics.
A Maria Clara or a Josephine Bracken?
Angsioco raged against the Damasos for using the pulpit to harangue against the RH bill, the anti-RH ordinances of Barangay Ayala Alabang and seven Bataan barangays, and Mayor of Manila Alfredo Lim’s city programs of family planning that is limited to the natural methods but nothing on the issues that the RH bill itself represents.
At the end of her two-part article she states: “I dressed up as Maria Clara and handed out condoms and he was in a barong. People were more than slightly amused by the idea and started having their pictures taken with us.”
I would be amused too if Maria Clara, the quintessential conservative and traditional Filipino who would use the abaniko as Muslim women use the burqa to hide their “evil” feminine allures, were used as a poster woman for the contraceptives and condoms crusade because that’s totally inappropriate.
Josephine Bracken would have been the only appropriate Philippine historical female to represent women’s liberation.
The woman’s rage of Angsiaco is a shrill and hysterical as the eunuch-y fits and frenzy of the Damasos, with the latter calling pro-RH advocates “terrorists” and the former considering anybody questioning the RH bill as anti-women’s rights bigots.
Women’s Rights
I wonder if Angsioco or many of the other pro-RH advocates, crusaders and lobbyists have even read the many versions of the RH bill.
If they did they’d discover that there is nothing in it that changes any basic women’s right to their own body, as they argue today, or their ovaries.
All Filipino women’s rights are already robustly protected by the Magna Carta for Women passed on August 14, 2009 by the previous Congress.
None of the updated RH bills is even attempting to change the present status of the law’s abhorrence of abortion as most pro-RH bill crusaders themselves recoil from the idea of a blanket de-criminalization of abortion which is inherently reprehensible.
Nobody but the Catholic Church issues edicts against the use of birth control devices and pills, but who follows the Church among the women’s flock these days?
Mythical Poverty vs Population
The Malthusian argument that population robustness equals poverty is inane, as a simple comparison easily shows: Japan, with a population of around 130 million (the 10th largest in the world), has a per capita income of $35,500 while the Philippines, with a population of around 94 million (ranking 12th in the world), has a per capita income of only $2,000.
Before the 2010 elections, where the previous lameduck government’s spending-inflated GDP “growth” became the basis for this latest estimate by some economists, ours even hovered lower at around $1,500 to $1,700 per capita.
The point is, the pro-RH proponents’ propaganda, based on an imaginary correlation between poverty and population, is hogwash (as Nobel prizewinning economist Simon Kuznets work demonstrated)--characteristic of the pigsty that is Congress, more so when spewed from the mouths of the usual pro-FVR-Gloria Arroyo porkers.
Veiled Pecuniary Interests
The real issue in the RH bill is Big Pharma and political pork barrel feeders’ disguised pecuniary interests: providing subsidies to purchase and distribute for free as “essential” medications and devices such contraceptive and condoms, hundreds of RH supplied “vans” politicos can skim from and put their names on, amounting to at least P3 billion clearly described in the RH bill plus untold billions mandated by the bill that others agencies such as PhilHealth, Presidential Anti-Poverty Commission, Pop- Com, etc. must extend to the RH program which is estimated to top P10 Billion per annum, and that such budgets included in the RH bill when it becomes law “shall be” provided for in succeeding National Budget that is tantamount to “automatic appropriations”.
All these subsidies when there has never even been a specific allocation for real killer diseases such as TB, dengue, and many other illnesses.
And they can’t even have a kind word for MRT/LRT working and wage earning commuters who are seeking a mere P4-5billion fare “subsidy” which come from their VAT and income taxes, anyway.
The Damaso’s and Angsioco’s hysterics do not benefit the public debate, they only obfuscate and obscure allowing the Big Pharma (that’s why Fidel V. Ramos is there, for the Carlyle group with billions investments in contraceptives and condoms) and political porkers to slip their greed past the people’s scrutiny.
Enemies in High Places
As for l’affaire Dominique Strauss Kahn, disgraced IMF chief, what is the full story?
We all love a scandal story of the big and powerful and assuming their guilt is tempting. But I pulled the reins when Strauss Kahn was denied bail and then placed in solitary confinement, virtually incommunicado.
Could this be a “honey trap” case? Strauss-Kahn has enemies in high places: frontrunning candidate of the French Socialist Party against the sinking French President Sarkozy, a man of the global oligarchs and war coalition, caught in his stalemated Libya Attack amidst a worsening French economy.
Center for Research on Globalization’s Mike Whitney writes: “… Strauss-Kahn was trying to move the bank in … a direction that didn’t require that countries leave their economies open to the ravages of foreign capital … leaving behind the scourge of high unemployment, plunging demand, hobbled industries …. that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries ...
“Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the bankers and corporatists …”
Exposés in the Business Circa
Reviewing the reactions from opinion writers in Philippine newspapers I found the following commentaries reflecting one-dimensional neoliberal, limited comprehension of the deeper geo-political and economic issues at stake: Business World’s “Calling a spade” by Solita Monsod, “Lessons on rule of law” describing her admiration for how the New York City law enforcers implemented its mandate without fear nor favor; but the view from those who critical watch the powerful globalists who control Wall Street and the US have this view, from Paul Craig Roberts, “The Strauss Kahn Frame- Up: the American Police State Strides Forward” exposing the true picture of the US as the title depicts – a police state ultimately in the service of the financial oligarchy.
This same thing happened to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer who tried to prosecute Wall Street’s Big Finance prior to the 2008 crash and he found his call girl affairs exposed and himself arrested to stop his investigations.
Veteran business columnist Tony Lopez had a more balanced view of the scandal, while Randy David in his Inquirer column “Public Lives” went into a Freudian analysis missing the real import in the global financial, economic and political scene of the Strauss- Kahn event.
(Tune to 1098AM, Radyo OpinYon Mon to Fri 5-6m, and Sulo M-W-F, 6 to 7 p.m. ; GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, TNT with HTL, Tuesdays, 8-9 p.m., replay 11 p.m.; visit http:// newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our radio and GNN shows)
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