Fourteen years of Epira

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 19, 2014 / Daily Tribune


Last week I touched base with Alain Pascua who is a “bird watcher” and conservationist nowadays, frequently disseminating social media posts on the bird species observed at the last surviving marsh down in Parañaque that some oligarchs want to bulldoze. Alain is also a leading member of Liling Briones’ NGO renowned for exposing the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) or presidential pork, an issue seemingly buried now.

Back in 2001, Alain was a lead organizer of the anti-Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) protests, whose members, who wore T-shirts that said, “I signed against the PPA,” emblazoned in red, for which I’m organizing a reunion. The PPA is the Power Purchase Agreements signed by Cory Aquino, FVR, and GMA with IPPs (Independent Power Producers) since the 1990s.

Such PPAs catapulted the Philippines’ power rates into the “highest in Asia.” And this was even before the Epira became law in June 2001. Epira, known as the Omnibus Power Bill in the late 1990s, did not become law under the Joseph Estrada administration despite intense lobbying from Big Business and their hatchet man in Congress then, Butch Abad. Estrada, advised by Sen. Juan Ponce-Enrile and Trade Secretary Jose Pardo, was skeptical of the proposed government guarantees to the power industry. Thus, Abad and company waited for Edsa II to fast break the Epira in less than five months by a lame duck Congress, before being swiftly signed into law by Gloria Arroyo in record time.

Amid numerous radio and TV ads in 2001 and 2002 promising an era of abundant, cheap household electricity, the public waited for the boon while the anti-PPA movement advanced to anti-Epira protests. These protests then culminated in a march from Bo. Kapitolyo’s Three Sisters restaurant, where Alain Pascua, Enrile, Rep. Boying Remulla, and hundreds more (myself included) signed the petition, to the Pasig Regional Trial Court, where we filed the historic case questioning the constitutionality of the Epira.

Despite our protests, the public continued to be lulled by the false promises of Epira. By late 2003, however, skepticism grew as power rates zoomed; and this disenchantment became so serious that someone had to cheat in the 2004 elections just to return to her usurped throne.

Two decades after the first PPAs were signed and 14 years since the Epira became law, the Philippines not only has the highest power rates in Asia, and sometimes the highest in the world — as in December 2013 and January 2014 when the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market manipulation added P4.17 per kilowatt-hour to the already highest in Asia P13/kWh, but it is also the only Association of Southeast Asian Nations country with major cities suffering from rolling brownouts and a major southern island (Mindanao) suffering up to 15-hour blackouts.

The power crisis in the Philippines from the supposed lack of electricity supply leads to tens of billions of pesos of losses to the domestic economy each year; yet for 10 whole years, the Philippine government, the elite “civil society,” and mainstream media allowed this crisis to go unresolved while devoting endless hours to comparatively trivial issues, such as the P10-billion “pork” anomaly.

And to take the monotony off such constant issues as “pork,” government and mainstream media belabor the China Sea disputes. Lately, a Chinese reclamation project in one of the Spratly islets drew vociferous protests from the Philippines that can do nothing to stop it. But the aggravating power crisis in the country, which is certainly within the powers of government to keep a lid on, gets only double-talk or short-lived attention and then endless procrastination from Malacañang.
One simple act that government could have done the past decade was to require private power companies earning billions in the Philippines to invest in new power plants here. But, clearly, with the way things are going, we shouldn’t be holding our breath.

Gathering the remaining members of the anti-PPA and anti-Epira movement to wear their “I signed against the PPA” T-shirts again should be an even prouder moment than before. It is a reminder that certain Filipinos were not sleeping when the thief crept in, and further evidence that perspicacious and visionary ordinary Filipinos saw through the veil of Philippine politics.

It will be a call to all citizens to exercise critical thinking whenever faced with foreign and local Big Business, their captured government agencies and politicians, as well as their controlled mainstream media and “civil society.”

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “The true list: People’s Grievances;” search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

No-bullsh*t zone

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 14, 2014 / Daily Tribune


Mike Whitney, writing in Counterpunch, an independent US political Web site, on May 12 spoke of how “US Media Ignores Putin’s Peace Plan” because they “(do not) want people to know that Putin is not the ghoulish, authoritarian caricature he’s portrayed to be, but a levelheaded pragmatist who wants a swift and peaceful resolution to the (Ukrainian) crisis.”

Whitney further wrote: “Putin is a plain-speaking guy who shoots from the hip and says what he means. He’s not a bullsh*tter…”
That reminded me of a Filipino political leader, President-Mayor Joseph Estrada, who last Monday showed the Philippine media and public that he means what he says; such that wherever he is becomes a “no-bullsh*t zone.”

That occasion marked the City of Manila opening its doors to its “Command Center,” showing on a video wall the size of a fourth of a volleyball court actual, real-time scenes captured by closed-circuit television cameras across Manila’s critical areas of traffic, security, and sanitation concerns. When Estrada launched his candidacy for the mayorship of Manila, he pledged to clear up traffic and clean up the fiscal, governance, and sanitation situations. There were many skeptics. Now the video wall that a horde of media reporters and cameramen witnessed gave evidence to Estrada’s accomplishment of that pledge. No bullshi*t. It was right there: Divisoria, T.M. Kalaw, Adriatico, and a dozen other scenes — clear of traffic jams and mess.

Manila Mayor Estrada, with his Vice Mayor Isko Moreno, reported other details such as the R-10 expansion to an all eight-lane road to decongest the port area. Sixteen thousand “urban poor” houses and 32,000 families (squatter houses usually house two families) have been removed and relocated to sites in Batangas, Laguna, and some in on-site developments — with titles to their new homes. Manila raised revenues which should have resolved the City’s fiscal woes. Then something came from out from left field — city hall employees’ withholding taxes of over P680 million due to the Bureau of Internal Revenue from 2007 to 2011 were never remitted by the previous administration; but Estrada is confident it will be overcome.

Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson to “Honorable President Mayor” Estrada in his agency’s request for the “moratorium on the truck ban… from May 13 to 20 (noontime), 2014 for 8 days in preparation for the World Economic Forum to be hosted by the Philippines from May 21 to 23, 2014.” The addition of “honorable” is apropos, as speaking in a clear tongue as Estrada does, is such a rarity in Philippine politics today. Plain talking reflects the integrity of word and deed, and a mark of honor — in contrast to the bullsh*t the public is getting today on the Napoles list and most everything else. I digress because the hypocritical, forked-tongues playing on the Napoles list need commenting.

Their hypocrisy is in direct contrast to the praise in this piece for integrity in talk and deed. On the issue of corruption, the self-righteous shams from stripteasing De Lima to Aquino to Lacson portray them as if they are immaculately white when their obscene Napoles striptease are but one of the many acts on the stage of the anti-corruption zarzuela being played out. In belaboring their immaculateness they believe they have no need to perform in real life, no requisite to deliver improvements in lives of the people and the nation that can be felt, enjoyed, and believed in. These people have made the entire country a Bullsh*t Zone. Now, BS Aquino has gotten in on the act to obfuscate the List.

Back to Manila, the city is bending backward to accommodate 6,000 trucks in batches of 200 trucks per hour for eight days — for the World Economic Forum. Local and foreign chambers of commerce shrilly protested the truck ban, accusing it of hurting the economy (Inquirer, “Manila truck ban pits Estrada vs business org,” Feb. 5).

The truck ban began February. At the Command Center press conference, Estrada held up a copy of one of the business sector’s favorite papers with the Inquirer’s May 10 headline, “S&P gives Philippine another credit upgrade,” to belie the business sector’s claim. The Big Business sector is just as self-serving as BS Aquino is too willing to sacrifice the public for their business bottomline.

Ironically, the World Economic Forum (WEF), established in 1971, will convene in Estrada’s “No-BS Zone” on May 21 while the organization presides over a world economy where, Oxfam says, “85 people now own 50 percent of world’s wealth,” and the Philippines, which this 23rd WEF describes as “poised to be the strongest performing economy in Southeast Asia,” was reported May 13 by local papers to be where “More self-rated poor went hungry.”

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Power blackmail in Mindanao;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Tempest in a teapot

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 12, 2014 / Daily Tribune


Exaggeration. That was my first reaction to the headlines describing “tension” over the arrest of Chinese fishermen off the Spratlys and their detention by Philippine authorities. “Tension” was also the term used by international reports I read, and I immediately suspected a coordinated build-up.

Arrests of Chinese fishermen by Philippine authorities have been going on for decades. Infinitely worse incidents have happened — like the 2012 Scarborough standoff and the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard — which had expectedly pushed nerves to the limit. But cases of poaching —notwithstanding their gravity — ought not to be blown out of proportion. Protocols in these cases are clear as diplomatic and legal processes are expected.
I explained to my radio audience the apparent exaggeration of this “tension” and we seemed to have a consensus. Philippine and Western mainstream media, in sync with the US State Department, are prone to stir up the same tempests in teacups when it comes to the China Sea issues. This tendency escalated after the “Asia pivot,” which the US announced over three years ago, raising more justification for US involvement in the region.

I did a quick research into such cases of arrests, and on the Internet I found that the Philippines’ arrests of Chinese fishermen since the 1990s numbered many, many more than reports of Chinese authorities arresting Filipino fishermen, of which I found only one.

The almost simultaneous case of the ship-ramming encounters between Chinese and Vietnamese maritime vessels at the Paracels is different. The Chinese side is moving a $1-billion oil rig into what it deems as “indisputable” Chinese territory 50 kilometers off the closest Chinese Shisha islands but 150 kilometers off the closest Vietnamese reference points. Higher officials on both sides have called for dialog to resolve the issue peacefully, although the ships of both sides are in what seems to be a “Mexican standoff” for now. That the Chinese have reiterated their desire for dialog indicates that it would not be obstinate. Shouldn’t mutual development of the resources of the area be the solution?

Brinkmanship is part of the strategy in negotiations, which both China and Vietnam are employing in their ongoing face-off. At stake may be billions of dollars of revenues from the natural wealth of the China Sea for the two parties. We hope the two sides are careful not to draw blood and, especially, not to fire anything more than water cannons at each other. At this juncture, they are avoiding what seems to be the easy habit of Philippine Coast Guard and naval personnel of being trigger happy, as was proven in the killing of the Taiwanese fisherman and now in the arrest of 11 Chinese fishermen, who yielded after supposed guns were fired in the air (or at them, as alleged, which should be investigated).

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meeting in Myanmar will be on its second working day when this column sees print. It would not be a surprise if the two incidents above happened in connection with this conference. Philippine mainstream media, reflecting the Aquino government’s strategy, created the impression, reflected in the prime establishment newspaper, the Inquirer, that “China tops Asean agenda” when, in fact, it is merely BS Aquino and his Foreign Affairs and Defense secretaries’ top agenda — not the Asean’s as a whole.

If anything, what the arrest of these Chinese fishermen will allow is for the Philippine side to raise the matter of a “joint” declaration on disputes over the China Sea, which it did not get in the last Asean meeting.

Vietnam and China are into negotiations without needing the intercession of any other international or regional bodies. Given the record of both China and Vietnam in resolving their most difficult issues, such as the border disputes that had led to military clashes some decades ago, but culminating today in cooperative efforts such as the Kunming-Hanoi road projects, it leads us to hope that the “oil rig” issue will be resolved peacefully and constructively for both.
On the other hand, relations and issues between China and the Philippines are another matter since the latter still refuses to engage in bilateral negotiations and insists on internationalizing the issue involving extraneous parties.

BS Aquino’s government is intent on raising the tempest in the teapot of the China Sea while unconcerned about the real tempest roiling with 100 million Filipinos who are experiencing or witnessing the following: 1) excruciating Mindanao power blackouts created deliberately by BS Aquino to enforce exorbitant, price-gouging power rates by the oligarchs; 2) increasing onerous taxes from Kim Henares sucking in professionals, as well as street vendors and pedicab drivers; and 3) the withholding of the Napoles “list” linking BS Aquino, his cover-up artist “Lie-la Dilemma,” and administration stalwarts.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s 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., this week on “Power blackmail in Mindanao;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)