BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
5/28-29/2011
One of the biggest lies we have been made to believe is that many of our workers leave because of acute unemployment. We take the statement that about 11.3 million of our people are out of work as logically correct. Added is the fact that as of January 2011, close to 19.4 percent of our labor force is underemployed, earning below what they are supposed to earn by their skill and qualifications, are engaged in intermittent work (mostly self-employed) which is short of the current minimum wage of P404 (now P426 daily), for an eight-hour work.
This reasoning persists because there has been no previous study why the estimated 11 million Filipinos opted to leave with many daring to gamble the unity of their family just to eke out a living abroad. But a random survey would startlingly reveal that close to 85 to 95 percent of those who left were in fact “not seeking employment”, but are “seeking for better employment” and “security of employment” abroad. For a labor analyst not to make a qualification on this could wrongly place the Philippines to the level of those countries in Central Africa, like Chad, Niger, Mali, Somalia and Sudan where migration to Europe for employment is a matter of survival.
Hence, analyzing why many of our workers leave would readily provide an answer that our problem is not unemployment, but security of tenure. We are not saying that unemployment is not a problem, but the kind of employment we propagated here has given rise to a more serious problem of job security and stagnating wage caused by the lack of opportunity to advance with a corresponding increase in income. The proliferation of labor-only contracting have instilled into the minds of those lucky enough to be employed here a painful truth. That truth is that there exists a barrier that prevents them from being promoted and correspondingly obtain increases by the merit of their length of service, experience and skill for the job and loyalty. It is this practice of leasing out of human services that has deprived many members of our precious labor force the incentive to hold on or to remain loyal to their job.
Admittedly, the minimum wage is fairly sufficient for an unmarried wage earner and without any dependent for support. In fact, the amount received by ordinary unskilled and semi-skilled workers is somewhat high if one would use as basis the low-value products manufactured by companies where they are mostly employed. Nonetheless, even if we say that our workers in that category are overpaid, the problem is not solved by their being employed. As contractual workers, of which many now belong, there is always in them the anxiety that before six months they could lose their jobs, with a grim prospect of not being rehired. That anxiety becomes most visible and apparent once they start to have a family and children to attend to. Indeed they constantly face the question: How long would they be able to hold on to their job?
The fear of economic dislocation matters most to many of them. While they know the scheme is to precisely prevent them from becoming regular employees, they could not however defer the needs of their families as they wait for the renewal of their contract. It is their family that suffers while in the meantime the scheme is being applied to them. If ever their contract is renewed, they will have to wait for a new job assignment for about one to two months.
The situation is worse for our educated white collar and technical workers. Even if many are receiving slightly above the minimum, that does not mean anything if they are entrapped into that vicious system of labor-only contracting. Aside from the absence of security of tenure, labor-only contractors peg to the lowest level their wage rate to maximize their profits. It is the intermittent employment that compels a great number of them to scout for greener pastures abroad. They know that for the entire years they would work as leased-out workers here they would only be receiving slightly above the minimum, if fortunate enough to be employed by a “fair-dealing” labor-only contractor. As contractual employees wanting to give up their employment here, they are willing to pay as much as from P90 thousand to P150 thousand for their placement fee.
As many of them would rightly surmise, two to three years of contractual service abroad would be equivalent to eight to ten years of continuous work here. If they are fortunate enough to work for a continuous service of 10 to 15 years, even if on a contractual basis, they could retire as though they worked here for 25 to 30 years with extra savings to allow them to send their children to private colleges and universities; own a house and lot which at times are even luxurious than that owned by upper middle class families; buy a car and other amenities they could not otherwise afford had they remained here. Most importantly, many of them open up their own businesses to contribute in their own way in helping our country.
What can be gleaned from this deplorable dilemma that confronts our workers, especially the technical and white collar workers, is they merely take their local experience as jumping board to qualify for employment abroad. Here, despite their educational attainment, qualification, skill and experience their status has been reduced to that of modern-day slaves paid an amount just enough to allow them to report for work. Their greatest fear is their serviceability as contractual workers. Many realize that at the age of 35 somehow they will have to go, and at 40 they resign themselves to the truth that no labor-only contractor will hire them. The reason is they are already considered too slow to cope up with the pace of work. Today, because of stiff competition, employer-beneficiaries demand much from their leased-out workers, like multi-tasking, and labor-only contractors willingly do that to secure that precious service contract in the supply of manpower.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Talk News TV with Herman Tiu Laurel
TOPIC: EDSA Tres Revisited
Guests: Ronald Lumbao of People's Movement Against Poverty and Jose Luis "Linggoy" Alcuaz
Guests: Ronald Lumbao of People's Movement Against Poverty and Jose Luis "Linggoy" Alcuaz
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)
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