Lawmakers, lawbreakers

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

6/11/2012

The recent Corona impeachment and conviction displayed the situation our title highlights today: Lawmakers as lawbreakers. In a sense, that is the rule instead of the exception because those who make the laws have the power — the same power that allows them to break the laws they make with impunity.

The same thing happened in 2001 with Estrada's impeachment and street mob ouster where the Philippine Establishment — from the oligarchs to the Church, to the "evil society," all backed up by the US — ran roughshod over the Rule of Law to install the leader they wanted.

But make no mistake: The same also prevails in the international stage where the US violates with impunity the multifarious laws the West has written for the world through the UN. For instance, despite the many anti-terror statutes written into international law, it is common knowledge that the US is leading the supply of arms to anti-Assad terrorist rebels in Syria today.

Last week, lawyers Homobono Adaza and Alan Paguia, together with yours truly, filed a petition for "Certiorari and Prohibition with a Prayer for a TRO (temporary restraining order), writ of preliminary injunction" against the Congress and the Senate, as represented by their respective leaders, and an urgent motion for "oral arguments" on what we allege are violations of the Constitution and the Rule of Law in the conduct of the entire Corona impeachment and conviction process. When a few friends say that the petition is laughed at by some, I contend that it is because they are ignorant of its purpose.

On the morning of our filing, former congressman Teddy "Boy" Locsin on his radio program took a pessimistic view of our action. However, according to those who tuned in to his evening TV "editorial" just about 12 hours later, he had changed his position and agreed that the issues must be raised before the Supreme Court (SC), even if just for the benefit of "posterity."

My personal experience in this has been the same as my opposition to Edsa II, where many old friends looked askance at me but four years later, after "Hello Garci," turned around to say I was right.

In fact, some of my political friends from the Estrada camp today (like Rez Cortez) even ask me, "On whose side are you, Corona's?" By answering that I am on the side of the Rule of Law, I hope that they've seen the very reason for my being an ally of Estrada.

When I was asked by another in the same group about the reactions to our petition from Senators Lacson, Drilon and Enrile, I merely cited the very proof that was presented before the Senate but which it had clearly disregarded — the testimony of Rep. Toby Tiangco showing how the House and its Speaker Sonny Belmonte ran roughshod over the Constitution and rules of verification to railroad the Articles of Impeachment; and why it was wrong for Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to have accepted it. But I don't think these can be any worse than the non-action of the SC on a separate petition of ours last January — with colleague Rod Salandanan of Bataan and Raffy Tongco of Quezon City, represented by Paguia as counsel — questioning the severely infirmed and blatantly illegal Articles of Impeachment, plus five other petitions questioning the omissions and short cuts that had caused the grave injustice.

Enrile contradicts himself when he leads the conviction of his hapless victims then defends those victims by saying they committed no crime. If we are to go by the law, there should be a pursuit of all alleged guilty parties. But as Alan Paguia points out, the law and the matter of justice for the Filipino people in these cases of purported corruption and abuse of high government officials are merely made into chips in the horse trading of politics.

In the case of former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, for example, all corruption charges were immediately dropped in the wake of her resignation. You see: There should have been no compromise if she had been guilty; but, as all the politicians know, most of them are as guilty, if not more, than those they accuse.

I think Corona believes that those who have accused him are far worse than anything they can ever accuse him of, with his final act of exposition of all that he is a declaration of how much more honest he is. To this day, Corona's major accusers, particularly Lacson and Drilon, still refuse to execute waivers for their bank accounts and other financial records.

The latest news is that senators allied with JPE got the biggest pork — a product perhaps of that last JPE meeting with Legarda et al. to convict Corona?

The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) is a law inspired and lobbied for by the US, supposedly to track illegal and terrorist money. But guess what? The biggest illegal funds transacted globally involve the $500-billion annual drug money transfers that have the Philippines as one of the biggest sources. Even though we have no data on the Philippines yet, we can see how the West and the US banks break the global anti-money laundering regime, by reading "Western Banks, Immune, Enjoy Biggest Slice of Drug Money Profits" posted by The Agonist and "American Banks 'High' on Drug Money" about Martin Woods, an expert at "sniffing out dirty money passing through International Banking Systems."

So, the US as the originator of the global anti-money laundering rules, is in reality the world's chief violator. Thus, every law abiding citizen of the world today, without yet capturing power and supplanting the present plutocratic structure, can only expose the chicanery, fraud, hypocrisy and misanthropy; and hope the majority comprehensively imbibes the practice of the Rule of Law to lay the groundwork for a genuinely democratic culture and political structure.

(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Not privatization

BACKBENCHER

Rod P. Kapunan

6/9-10/2012

It is most gratifying to note that the doctors and medical personnel of the UP-Philippine General Hospital are the ones taking the cudgels in resisting the privatization of government hospitals.

According to Representatives Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna and Angelo Palmones of Agham Party List, the government is seeking the passage of House Bill No. 6099, authored by Bacolod City representative Anthony Golez and Negros Occidental representative Alfredo Maranon III, that would allow the 26 government hospitals to contract loans and grants, and even seal joint ventures to expand or build private rooms for paying patients so they all could be operated independently like any money-making government-owned corporations, thereby justifying the imposition of more budget cuts in government subsidies and services to indigent patients.

Maybe our militant watchdogs in Congress got it wrong. The bill simply seeks to eliminate the costly subsidy by teaching those hospitals "how to fish", and not to beg for funds. The bill would require them to charge patients who could afford, while using those earnings to subsidize who could only avail of the charity ward. Representatives Casiño and Palmones denounced the planned withdrawal of some P4.7 billion in subsidies from 26 of the country's biggest hospitals after it was tentatively approved by the House panel to convert them into government corporations permitted to generate their own funds.

At the surface, there appears to be some sort of wisdom in the logic advanced by the two congressmen. After all, subsidy is a residue of the discredited concept of welfare most prevalent among socialist and neo-socialist states. Aside from costing a heavy burden to the resources of the government, subsidy has often been the source of graft and corruption.

Often, patients who could well afford to pay for their medical bills seek to find a compadre to sponsor them, and that gratuitous accommodation includes not only their room, the best the hospital could offer, and sometimes the medicines. This takes place not only among government hospitals. The well-to-do are able to avail of these benefits and services because of their "connection", thus depriving the poorest of the poor of the program for which it was rightfully legislated.

Instead of scrapping subsidy, that concept should be modified. One must bear it in mind that taxation remains justified, even if at times they are regressive, because people expect something in return for their money. Without that reciprocal obligation, then we would be having a sitting government that is plainly engaged in extortion. In fact, taxes in the name of people's protection and defense have never been fully accepted as valid because that would be tantamount to legalizing a protection racket—no different from what the mobsters are doing.

More than that, there are the so-called "poorest of the poor" as now Ilocos Norte representative Imelda R. Marcos would point it out, who badly need public assistance. Economic inequality is always bound to happen in a system that adheres to free enterprise, and it is in this gray area where government subsidy is needed. Taxation is a sort of indirect equalizer in a social system that can never attain the utopia of absolute equality.

When President Marcos issued decrees creating the Heart Center of the Philippines, the Lungsod Silangan Mental Health Center, the Lungsod ng Kabataan Hospital, the Lung Center of the Philippines and the National Kidney Foundation of the Philippines, he did not have in mind the idea of giving everything for free even to those who could afford such services.

Many of the proponents of welfare failed because their focus of public service was based on universalism and on the egalitarian precepts of socialism. Although it is not a bad idea to provide a universal health care and services, the program tends to escalate, that in the end the program itself is affected. As a result, government hospitals have badly deteriorated. Universal health has become a bottomless well to many of our corrupt officials manning subsidized government agencies. Otherwise, the PGH and the East Avenue Medical Center would not have deteriorated that badly.

Our economic planners failed to anticipate that it is the patient that determines whether he wants to avail of the pay ward or just wants to settle for the charity ward, and people who could afford would always seek the better comfort for himself. If Health Secretary Enrique Ona and the administrators of big government-owned hospitals simply observed this elementary rule, there is no reason why government hospitals would be scouring for funds to sustain themselves. The Heart Center, the Lung Center, the National Kidney Institute are good models of successful government-operated hospitals; that it is possible for them to offer and maintain the same quality of service as those operated by private hospitals at a much cheaper cost.

Besides, the decrees exempting them from the payment of taxes, including payment of customs duties for their importation of hospital equipment for their own use, are more than enough to allow them to rechannel those funds to subsidize poor patients.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph facebook.com).

The ‘power’ struggle continues

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

6/8/2012

Several power struggles are going on. A minor one among the ruling elite just saw the victimized Chief Justice (CJ) yield to the unjust persecution. The other is the power struggle between those upholding the principle of the Rule of Law and the self-serving abusers of that very law among those in power.

Last Tuesday, several crusaders for the Rule of Law went to the Supreme Court (SC) to demand action on the pending petitions before it on the jurisdictional violations that were prejudicial to the CJ's case as well as to damn all the institutions involved in the travesty of due process in the impeachment exercise.

Today, as you read this, another "power" struggle is being waged by advocates of the Filipino power consumers' cause at a hearing of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on the 2013 Maximum Average Price (MAP) petition by the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) for its distribution charge, which would again raise electricity rates in the coming years. This is just one among a gamut of issues, including the Meralco-National Power Corp. (Napocor) P14-billion settlement predictably granted by the Rizal Regional Trial Court (RTC) as a pass-on cost to consumers, which we will have to put a stop to. But let us first cut through all the crap.

First, the 2013 MAP deliberations are premature since the 2012 MAP hearings still have unresolved issues as raised by Mang Naro Lualhati (our octogenarian hero of the first P30-billion Meralco refund, along with Cefie Padua and others), as well as the 500-percent overpricing of transformers and other costs of Meralco approved by the ERC, as charged by Iligan Light and Power Inc. (ILPI) against the power distributor before the Court of Appeals.

In view of the fact that the ERC just gave its provisional green light for Meralco to implement its 2012 MAP, why on earth is it now hearing the MAP petition for 2013 without first resolving any of the important prejudicial questions?

Lualhati issued this warning (through text): "Ka Mentong, ERC refuses to exclude the P46,015-billion asset base bloating. This means P48-billion overcharge in 2015. They will approve a charge of P2.50 to P3.50 per kWh, instead of P0.90 per kWh, in 2013 as they have done in 2012…"

Today's hearing will have lawyer Bono Adaza volunteering his legal expertise, in support of Butch Junia, who will be the lead advocate. Several citizen volunteers are also joining, including Lito Villanueva, Boyet Ancheta, and others who texted but didn't give their names. Needless to say, we would always need volunteers to show one and all that we are vigilant — especially a certain lady justice of the SC who was appointed by the current Palace occupant.

Justice Lourdes Sereno, one of those suspected to be shortlisted by BS Aquino III as the next CJ, in an SC decision favoring Meralco, had the gall to fault us consumer volunteers for "not being vigilant" against the power giant's rate increase maneuvers when we had already devoted much of our own time and resources to continuously oppose such abuses — as against the ERC's grant of a P2.2-billion "regulatory liaison budget" for Meralco, at the expense of power consumers, even when the power company merely requested approval for P2.02 billion (or P180 million less).

What "regulatory liaison" means is beyond anybody's understanding; but it would lead one to believe that it forms part of Meralco's needs in "dealing" with the ERC. Just what the hell is this for? Could it be what is sometimes called an "intermediation" cost? And why would the ERC be so generous as to increase this on its own? Is this where the two dozen-strong, highly paid Meralco legal team gets its fees?

In contrast, poor consumer protection advocates simply dig into their own pockets and take time out from their work to put in hours upon hours of research and attendance in hearings in order to stop the power fleecing.

Then, we have the P14-billion settlement agreement. For those still not in the know, it concerns the contract obligations to purchase a certain amount of electricity from Napocor that Meralco reneged on when it set up its own independent power producers (IPPs) to purchase power from these sister firms. Yet, despite losing the case, Meralco has repeatedly petitioned to pass on this penalty to its customers.

Luckily for consumer groups, this was one of the issues that former Solicitor-General Jose Anselmo Cadiz fought hard against. But, as we now know, a few months after Cadiz's sudden and inexplicable resignation in February, the decision of the Rizal RTC came out, leaving it to the ERC to decide whether the P14-billion penalty will be shouldered by Meralco's customers.

Surprisingly, the replacement for Cadiz was SolGen Francis Jardeleza, who was formerly a general counsel to a major conglomerate that's now among the owners of Meralco. Is it any wonder why consumers lost the case under this new SolGen?

And, given the ERC's unbroken record of favoring Meralco, will its decision on the huge pass-on financial obligation be much of a surprise?

Fortunately, Jojo Borja of ILPI called us with some good news: engineer David Tauli, former senior vice president of Cepalco (Cagayan Electric Power and Light Co.), is now joining the crusade against the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) — the mother of all these power evils.

Frustrated with the results of the Epira and the years of energy woes Mindanao has faced because of it, particularly the crises of the last two years which peaked in the first quarter of 2012 when the whole of Mindanao was literally up in arms against the lies of Manila's power authorities (e.g., Sen. Serge Osmeña and Energy Chief Rene Almendras), Tauli has become one of those very vocal about such suspicious power crises.

We would thus have to rouse more people like him into action as we continue on in this fight.

(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday-Wednesday-Friday [change of sched], 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN's HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m. on "The Power Struggle Continues" with Jojo Borja and Butch Junia; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)