People power vs ‘power people’

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

2/27/2013

Daily Tribune

Let's make this clear: The heirs of the "people power" of 1986 are not the people of this country. Only a few "power people," or the ruling class, benefited and continue to rake it in at the expense of the people. In the month of Edsa Uno, the privatized water services Manila Water and Maynilad petitioned for a P5.70 and jP10.70 increase in their rates. That's 15 percent and 20 percent more even as the two companies reported increases in year-on-year profits of 26 percent and 15 percent respectively.

In the electricity sector, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved a P0.19 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) increase to the universal charge to pay off P53 billion of "stranded contract costs" or the infamous take-or-pay PPA (purchased power agreement) costs of FVR that were turned over to private power companies (now a small part of the P1-trillion stranded debts and costs to be finagled from consumers over the next two decades or more).

Monday evening, I received an e-mail from one of our movement's newest converts. Behind the nom de guerre and Web site thegirlninja.com, our newfound people power amazona from "laissez faire" economics and financial philosophy to our "social market" perspective sent a report on the Light Rail Transit (LRT) 1 privatization "sovereign guarantee" being provided again by the Aquino III government and his DoTC (Department of Transportation and Communications) secretary:

"The DoTC said the concession contract for the private sector's half of the P60-billion project would include a 'top-up' provision… the difference between pre-approved fares in the concession contract and the actual fares that the government will be able to implement when the time for adjustments comes… will be paid by the government to the operator… (DoTC Undersecretary) Lotilla… made the distinction between the LRT extension's top-up subsidies and the take-or-pay… in the Metro Rail Transit (MRT)…(such that in the) take-or-pay provision in the…MRT contract… commercial risks were borne by the government, removing the incentive for the private sector to improve operations."

Who is Lotilla kidding? Any reader will see that there is actually no difference in the "top-up" and "take-or-pay" guarantees. Thus, we are expecting an MRT fare hike after the elections, and are gearing up to stop it with (real) people power again.
One significant international event last week that the Filipino people and electricity consumers should take note of is the people power in Bulgaria against the 138-percent electricity price hike there. The protests culminated in a 100,000-strong demonstration that toppled the government. Just think about it: Bulgarian electricity cost was only at 0.0846 euro/kWh, approximately $0.118/kWh (at 1 euro to $1.49) or about P4.74/kWh, when Filipinos are paying as high as P13/kWh and going higher.

Aside from having the "highest power rate in Asia" and being top five in the world, the Filipino people are being mercilessly conned by the power people, both corporate and political, as National Power Corp. (Napocor) debts of $16.8 billion in 2001 — now under the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (Psalm) Corp. — remain the same today; notwithstanding interest payments reaching $18 billion despite 90 percent of Napocor assets already having been privatized.
In all, "stranded debts," Napocor obligations, and "stranded contract costs" (aka the PPA) were left for the people to pay.
Psalm claims its debt has remained constant due to delays in implementation, but that it has raised $10.21 billion from Napocor asset sales. Of the amounts collected, Psalm reports only $5.48 billion, which already includes interest. Where's the rest?

Napocor's transmission grid, which was earning P16 billion or $400 million annually, was "sold" to Monte Oro (of Razon, FVR and Carlyle), then turned over to the NGCP or National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (with China State Grid, SM and Coyiuto groups) on installment for two-thirds of the payment schedule. These corporations where Napocor assets were transferred to, according to Psalm president Emmanuel Ledesma Jr., still have a combined debt to government of more than $12 billion: $9.99 billion from the transfer of IPP (independent power producer) contracts to the private firms, $2.81 billion remaining payment for TransCo, as well as concession fees from NGCP; while the rest of the remaining debt are still being deciphered.
When I read that Fidel V. Ramos spoke again at the 27th Edsa counter-revolution celebration (which, by the way, ended at 11 a.m., probably the earliest wind-up in 27 years) about "pre-Edsa ills still (being) around," I could almost feel the puke well up.

Before 1986, these exorbitant power, water, and transportation rates were never a problem. I'm using "counter-revolution" to characterize the Edsa Uno event as it was without doubt the start of the reversal of Philippine society, from a developing "social welfare" system of democratizing wealth, services, and economics through state-led public enterprises, of deconstructing the oligarchy's monopolies, of decolonizing and de-Americanizing diplomacy by diversifying relations with other global blocs, among many other "revolutionary" reforms, thereby reducing the vestiges of the feudal and neocolonial era, to the laggard that it is today.

The Philippines — after 27 years of Edsa I legacies of deepening popular suffering and despair, growing poverty and hunger, exacerbating unemployment, critically proliferating social cancers of illegal drugs and gambling, and unabated corruption in elite-ruled governments, with regulatory agencies captured by the corporate-financial mafia — is ripe for revolution.

Question is, will Filipinos still be capable of regaining the optimism, love, and hope to overcome despair, apathy and surrender in fighting on — as their counterparts in Bulgaria have done — becoming victorious over the power people?

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com, with this week's topic, "Sabah: Merdeka Redux?" with Al Marim Centi Tilla, lawyer Alan Paguia and Prof. Tony Pangilinan; also visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

What if…

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

2/25/2013

Daily Tribune

I didn't want to write another 27th column on the 27th Anniversary of Edsa Uno just to expose and criticize the events of that day, which everyone seems to be doing each year. It has gotten so monotonous and boring that Edsa Shrine celebrations have become a mere banality for the nation — hardly ever taken seriously, even by their organizers. Sure, there are the perfunctory fun runs for the day; a few helping of celebrities gathered to regale the almost-empty crowd; or even some pre-Edsa Uno programs extolling the late Cardinal Sin and replaying the self-praising narrations of so-called Edsa leaders, Fidel V. Ramos and Juan Ponce-Enrile, as well as the Edsa anthem ("Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo") of a musical "has-been" that is hardly ever played in the country any more than it is known to the world.

That is why all I want now is to learn from the history of the past 27 years. And what better way to pick up some lessons than to ask a series of "what if" questions on how the course of Philippine history could have changed, starting with:

1. What if Nikita Khrushchev of Russia never denounced the Stalinist era, recognized Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia (who was proven wrong by history as his country does not exist anymore) and his dissolution of the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau, an international forum of the communist movement) that created the rift with Mao Zedong of China, which led to its support in the Philippines of a new communist party distinct from the old Jose Lava PKP (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas), would there have ever been a Jose Ma. Sison faction of the communist movement that eventually led to a new Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968 and the founding of the New People's Army in 1969?

2. What if President Ferdinand Marcos never aspired for an extension of his second term which was to end in 1972, would the Philippine military have been commissioned to prepare the "Operation Sagittarius" martial law plan that was eventually implemented on Sept. 21, 1971? Could the Laurels have won the 1972 elections, defeating the Liberals' Aquino or Gerry Roxas? Could the Nacionalistas have done an alternating Putin and Medvedev or something like what the Chinese Communist Party has done in changing its old guards every 12 years while maintain continuity? (Martial law was what led Batangas congressman and Speaker of the House, Jose "Pepito" Laurel, who championed nationalist industrialization, and his younger brother "Doy" to form the anti-Marcos Unido coalition.)

3. What if Sen. Ninoy Aquino or Jose "Apeng" Yap never introduced Jose Ma. Sison to Bernabe Buscayno, would the New People's Army ever have been set up, which lent credence to Marcos' "red scare" and martial law? Would Marcos and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have been given the justification to investigate, prosecute, incarcerate, and later exile Aquino, which all led to the ill-fated return to the country of the latter, as part of a series of events leading up to Edsa I?

4. What if in 1968 Ninoy Aquino never exposed the Jabidah commando unit under Operation Merdeka, the plan for the destabilization and eventual restoration of Sabah to the Philippine that started from the time of President Diosdado Macapagal and continued on to Marcos, would the Philippines have been embroiled in the decisively costly Mindanao war with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Muslim rebellion started by protesting UP Muslim students triggered by Ninoy's exposé that claimed at least 80,000 Filipino lives? Could the Philippines have actually won back Sabah and subsequently earned billions of dollars from its oil revenues, thereby establishing Marcos' legacy in the annals of Philippine history?

5. What if Marcos had never contracted lupus, which caused all the speculation and jockeying for a post-Marcos era, would Ninoy Aquino have even hazarded a return trip to the country as Marcial Bonifacio with a fake passport, passing through US and Taiwanese immigration, only to be assassinated as he walked out of the plane, sparking three years of massive protests as well as the destabilization of the economy with massive foreign exchange attacks and capital flights? Would the US have demanded a "snap election"? Would Marcos' then defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile and then AFP chief-of-staff Fidel V. Ramos hazarded to plan a coup against him that eventually led to the defections, with Cardinal Sin calling on his "flock" to protect the two at Camps Aguinaldo and Crame?

6. What if Cory Aquino had never declared a revolutionary government and had never become president, would the public assets established under Marcos have been transferred to private corporations and oligarchs and scrapped outright at a great loss to the people (such as the National Power Corp.; Manila Electric Co. Foundation; Philippine National Oil Corp.; Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System; the North and South Expressways; the National Food Authority flour trading operations that subsidized local rice purchases; BASECO; hydro and geothermal energy development; Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Corp.; PICOP (paper mill); Iligan Integrated Steel Mill; PASAR's copper smelting; ARMSCOR arms production, etc.)?

These are the endless "what ifs." Please contribute yours through newkatipunan.blogspot.com.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over at www.gnntv-asia.com, with this week's topic, "Pangilinan's Philex Mining Disaster;" also visit http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)

Sabah-teurs and traitors

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