YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
7/18-24/2011
Walang pagbabago! Ganoon pa rin! Walang patutunguan!
When I was five years old, my mother, Rosa Zaragosa Araneta Alcuaz, brought me to Nacionalista and Landsdale presidential candidate, Ramon Magsaysay, in his Sta. Mesa home. He sat me on his lap and put on a campaign pin on my shirt.
I believed in him as the savior of the Philippines.
I believed the CIA propaganda.
I believed that President Elpidio Syquia Quirino from Vigan, Ilocos Sur was the Filipino devil-incarnate. He was guilty of a trilogy of sins. He had a Golden Urinola under his bed. The bed was big and expensive while he was already a widower. The third and last sin had something to do with the Tambobong Estate.
In late March 1957, when the news broke that the presidential plane, Mt. Pinatubo, had crashed soon after taking off from Cebu’s Lapu-Lapu Airport, that moment was forever engraved in my memory.
I was in the same part of our dining room where I usually type both my English and Pilipino columns. It was early evening. We did not have a TV yet. We got the news from a table top AM/FM radio.
In a flash, our hopes were extinguished.
Do Gooders!
The reformist Magsaysay boys split from the Nacionalista Party and organized their own party.
And so, for the next decade, my mother’s family supported the PPP (1957 & 1965), Grand Alliance (1959), and the United Opposition Party (1961). We lost three of the four elections. We only won in 1961 because we were coalesced with 1957-1961 Vice President Diosdado Macapagal.
However, our unity with him did not last long. He was suspected and accused of graft and corruption. However, he lost his hidden wealth when his Secretary of Finance and suspected moneybags, Feny Hechanova, died from gas suffocation in Europe.
In 1965, then Senate President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos jumped from the Liberal Party to the Nacionalista Party. He beat the native aspirants as well as another import, 1961-1965 Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez, in the party convention.
Marcos won the November 1965 elections partly because of the backlash to Macapagal caused by the suppression of the movie version of FM’s biography, “For Every Tear a Victory!”
Full-time Activist
In November 1965, when I assumed command of the Ateneo de Manila High School Pre-Military Training Corps of Cadets, I quoted Marcos’s favorite slogan, ”This Nation can be Great Again”.
When Marcos and Vice President Fernando Lopez were re-elected and defeated Serging Osmeňa, Jr. and Genaro Magsaysay in November 1969, I dropped out of my last semester in college in order to become a full-time activist.
I had been recruited in my first year by Jesuit Fr. Jose Blanco and Ateneo History Professor Rolando Quintos to be a cadre in the moderate, as opposed to radical, wing of student and youth activism.
We were very successful in our politicalizing, organizing, mobilizing, and protesting.
Martial Law
When Marcos, Enrile, et al. implemented Proclamation 1081 declaring Martial Law, on a Friday evening, September 1972, we were meeting overnight. We were planning our strategy for the November 1973 national elections.
A pragmatic group among the reformists was pushing to coalesce again with the Liberal Party.
This time around, we were negotiating with LP President and Senator Gerardo Roxas.
With just one stroke of the pen, Marcos dashed all our dreams, hopes and visions for our country and people.
He stole thirteen and a half years from all those who were into activism and politics.
Hope and Expectations
There were occasions that gave us back our faith, our hopes, and our love of country and people.
There was the night of April 6, 1978.
On the eve of the 1978 region-wide Interim Batasan Pambansa elections, a whisper and word-of-mouth campaign brought the greater part of Metro Manila’s residents out in the streets to show their real feelings about the Marcos regime by making noise.
What was planned to be a few minutes of defiance turned into an overnight overflow of suppressed emotions.
Then again, there were the four nights and three days of EDSA Uno (February 22-25, 1986).
For those who hate Trapos and traditional campaigns and elections, the May 1992 elections gave two options to hope and work for victory.
One was Lakas’ FVR, who won. The other was PRP’s MDS (Miriam Defensor Santiago), who believed she won but was cheated out of her victory.
In 1998, the masses had their chance to hope and win a short-lived victory.
A Sorry History
Then, depending on which side you were, there was EDSA Dos (January 16-20) or Tres (April 25-May 1).
In 2004, the masses again dared to aspire, expect and hope in a FPJ.
However, GMA grabbed that hope from the masses a second time, a second time around in 2004.
In 2001, she tried to plant hope among the elite.
All of these turned sour, all these past hopes were dashed in one way or other.
Then, on August 1, 2009, Fate or God Himself set us up both for the biggest expectation and disappointment of our lives – Noynoy/P-Noy.
What is it in Philippine politics that condemns us to a never-ending cycle of false hope and real despair?
It is the Philippine disease.
Today, we see variations of it.
One is the sorry history of the PCSO.
The other is the electoral protest of Koko Pimentel against Juan Miguel Zubiri before the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
Bad Spending Habits Die Hard!
The PCSO is perceived by both the rich and the poor as one big milking cow.
Its charter mandates fixed percentages of the income to go to prizes (55 %), charity (30 %), and administrative and operational expenses (15 %).
However, both the PCSO Board and its management have been lax in preserving the 30 % share for charity.
When I was appointed as a director in March 2001, Admin & Operations had already borrowed a billion from Charity. By the time I exposed this in January 2003, the deficit had doubled.
Eight years later, Bayan Party List Rep. Neri Colmenares exposed this in a privilege speech as having reached P6.9 billion.
Oh! If only they listened to me then.
Another recurring controversy is the monstrous advertising budget of the PCSO.
When I was a director from March 2001 to January 2004, it ranged from P300 to P350 million. In 2006, it was almost a billion pesos.
Been There, Heard That
After the Robert Rivero controversy in 2001, GMA publicly instructed us to economize and reduce the advertising budget.
Instead, we managed to increase it.
In October 2001, we were investigated by the Senate Committee on Constitutional Reform and Revision of Laws chaired by Senator Edgardo Angara.
The Majority/Administration side tried to prevent the hearing. The Minority/Opposition pushed through and nine Minority Senators attended. Nothing came out of it.
These last two weeks, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has held four hearings on several aspects, anomalies, charges and controversies.
I have been religiously attending them and will attend today’s (Monday, July 18) fifth hearing.
At the end of each day, I have an uneasy feeling of “been there, heard that”.
Could this be another whitewash?
Not Once but Twice
Certainly, the thing that really takes the cake is the Koko Pimentel vs. Migs Zubiri electoral protest before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET).
Koko has been cheated not once but twice.
First of all, Koko was leading Zubiri by about 110,000 votes in the COMELEC’s national canvass.
Then, the Maguindanao votes came in. Zubiri had 195,823 against Koko’s 67,111. The difference of 128,712 votes made Zubiri the 12th and Koko the 13th in the Senatorial seats.
Koko’s protest was focused on Maguindanao and a few more mainly Muslim areas. Based on the SET’s normal procedures, Koko should already be sitting as the last and twelfth senator.
However, Zubiri employed delaying tactics that can take until 2013 to resolve.
Claiming massive fraud, he filed a counter protest covering many precincts in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces.
However, the SET’s procedures are designed so that a counter-protest based on imaginary fraud will not be allowed.
The protested as well as the counter-protested precincts are divided into the first 25 % and the subsequent 75 %. Each side chooses the 25 % that will give it the best advantage. Based on the revision of the ballots in the first 25 %, the SET will decide whether to proceed with the balance of 75 %.
Starting with protestant Koko’s 25 %, the SET found reason to continue with his 75 %. These, together with Migs’ first 25 %, were already finished before the May 10, 2010 elections.
Based on the minimal effects of Zubiri’s first 25 %, the SET should have declared Koko the winner.
This was where Koko was cheated a second time.
The SET by a vote of 9 – 3, allowed the opening and revision of the balance of 75 % of the counter protested precincts. Thus, Koko is condemned to wait it out till beyond the 2013 elections. Only in the Philippines!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Meralco unstoppable, ERC infallible
CROSSINGS
Butch Junia
7/18-24/2011
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) last month granted or approved Meralco’s Maximum Average Price (MAP) of P1.5828 per kilowatt hour for distribution, supply and metering (DSM) charges, to take effect July 2011.
Meralco’s DSM rate today is P1.6464 pkwh, granted by ERC for Regulatory Year (RY) 2011 (June 2010-July 2011).
It is a rate that consumers led by Mang Naro Lualhati say should only be P0.90 pkwh.
Meralco’s application in June 2010, approved exactly a year later, was for a rate increase to P1.7056 pkwh for RY 2012. This was ERC Case No. 2010-069RC.
Still, consumers led by Mang Naro say that rate should only be P0.90 pkwh.
P20-B Overcharge
When ERC announced last month its order granting Meralco’s latest overstated rate, ERC made much of the point that the rate they approved at P1.5828 pkwh was lower than the current rate of P1.6464 pkwh.
Mang Naro was not impressed – P1.5828 pkwh is still P0.6828 pkwh over the true rate, which he said was P0.90 pkwh. With Meralco’s annual sales of 30 Billion kwh, that would be an overcharge of over P20 Billion.
The ERC’s latest rate award to Meralco is also being challenged by other consumers like Pete Ilagan of the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms or Nasecore.
They insist that ERC’s approval of Meralco’s Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) was hasty, irregular, arbitrary and contrary to law and jurisprudence.
The ARR is the projected expense budget of Meralco that is now the basis for the rate that Meralco will charge us for the next four years, from July 2011 to June 2015.
ERC on Other Side
Last June 28, Meralco filed its application for approval of its MAP for RY 2012 and the translation of that MAP into a distribution rate structure for its various customer classes. This was docketed as ERC Case No. 2011-088RC, a new case.
As expected this drew loud protests from those who insist that there are many unresolved issues in the ARR application, ERC Case No. 2010-069RC.
Arguments and objections ranged from the legal, technical, policy, mathematical, etc.
Being familiar with the issues, I know the oppositors have the law, jurisprudence, logic, equity, fairness on their side.
Unfortunately, ERC is on the other side.
Reviewing the whole process that has been laid out by ERC under its so-called internationally-accepted rate-setting methodology – the PBR or Performance Based Regulation – consumers do not stand a chance, at all.
Draft Determination
I will just cite a few choice quotes from some of the PBR documents, and leave the rest to your curious minds.
On December 15, 2010, in the “Review of Operating and Maintenance Expenditure (OPEX) Forecast: Third Regulatory Period” prepared by ERC’s Regulatory Operations Service, the ROS said: “In this review, the ROS has relied on the accuracy of the information provided to the ERC by MERALCO.
“While during the clarificatory meeting process, ROS queried on information provided in the revenue application that appeared to be inconsistent or inaccurate, ROS did not undertake an audit or attempt to verify the information on which it based itsrecommendations. ROS, therefore, cannot be held responsible for any conclusions based on misleading or inaccurate information provided.”
Also on December 15, 2010, in the “DRAFT DETERMINATION” on ERC Case No. 2010-069RC, signed by Chairman Zenaida Cruz-Ducut, Commissioners Alejandro Barin, Jose Reyes and Maria Teresa Castaneda, the ERC said in Item 1.3.2: “The Draft Determination is not a final resolution of MERALCO’s applications. Xxx Moreover, the Draft Determination does not have any impact or bearing on MERALCO’s current distribution wheeling charges or will not be used to set future distribution wheeling charges.”
Final Determination
On June 6, 2011, in Page 6 of the FINAL DETERMINATION signed by Chairman Cruz-Ducut and Commissioners Barin, Reyes, Castaneda and Rauf Tan, the ERC said: “The Final Determination is the final resolution of MERALCO’s application. It presents the ERC’s final decision on the price control arrangements that will apply to MERALCO for the Third Regulatory Period and will form the basis on which MERALCO will prepare and submit its distribution rate applications for the Third Regulatory Period. Xxx These rate structures are to be filed with the ERC by June 13, 2011. Xxx The implementation of the new rate structures for the July 2011 billing period is the scheduled start of the Third Regulatory Period (July 1, 2011)…..”
On December 8, 2008, Res. No. 20, S. 2008 was adopted unanimously by Chairman Cruz-Ducut and Commissioners Barin, Reyes, Castaneda and Tan, Modifying the “Rules for Setting Distribution Wheeling Rates for Privately Owned Distribution Utilities Entering Performance Based Regulation (RDWR), with Article VII on the Regulatory Reset Process, providing in Item 7.2.4, as follows: “At these hearings the ERC will have the opportunity to question the Regulated Entity on its proposed distribution tariffs and parties of record to the rate case will have the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses put forward by the Regulated Entity to defend its application.”
There is, however, a limitation to this cross-examination stated in Footnote 21 to this rule, to wit: “Note that the questions and cross-examination will only be allowed on aspects relevant to the rate application and not on earlier regulatory decisions or the basis on which these were made. For example, cross-examination on aspects decided by the ERC in its final determination on the price control arrangements for the relevant Regulatory Period will not be accepted at the hearings.”
Beyond Challenge
A Commission that started the rate process disavowing responsibility for its conclusions, virtually railroads the filing of the rate translation, eventually ends up elevating itself to an absurd level of infallibility, placing its determinations, no matter how infirm, beyond challenge on cross-examination.
Incredibly, ERC in PBR wants us to dissociate the so-called rate translation from ERC’s Rate Determinations which are the bases of that translation, especially when ERC has yet to resolve questions and issues raised by consumers on many major aspects of those Determinations.
This ERC PBR boggles the mind and beggars the poor.
If we did not have Mang Naro and Pete, we would already have drowned in all the oxymorons and non-sequiturs ERC has been spewing out lately.
And, we would have lost our shirts in the bargain, too.
Time we did something about our power rates, which is among the highest in the world.
Together with Dave Diwa, who has made his mark in consumer advocacies, we will organize – walk the talk – for Meralco customers.
Butch Junia
7/18-24/2011
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) last month granted or approved Meralco’s Maximum Average Price (MAP) of P1.5828 per kilowatt hour for distribution, supply and metering (DSM) charges, to take effect July 2011.
Meralco’s DSM rate today is P1.6464 pkwh, granted by ERC for Regulatory Year (RY) 2011 (June 2010-July 2011).
It is a rate that consumers led by Mang Naro Lualhati say should only be P0.90 pkwh.
Meralco’s application in June 2010, approved exactly a year later, was for a rate increase to P1.7056 pkwh for RY 2012. This was ERC Case No. 2010-069RC.
Still, consumers led by Mang Naro say that rate should only be P0.90 pkwh.
P20-B Overcharge
When ERC announced last month its order granting Meralco’s latest overstated rate, ERC made much of the point that the rate they approved at P1.5828 pkwh was lower than the current rate of P1.6464 pkwh.
Mang Naro was not impressed – P1.5828 pkwh is still P0.6828 pkwh over the true rate, which he said was P0.90 pkwh. With Meralco’s annual sales of 30 Billion kwh, that would be an overcharge of over P20 Billion.
The ERC’s latest rate award to Meralco is also being challenged by other consumers like Pete Ilagan of the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms or Nasecore.
They insist that ERC’s approval of Meralco’s Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) was hasty, irregular, arbitrary and contrary to law and jurisprudence.
The ARR is the projected expense budget of Meralco that is now the basis for the rate that Meralco will charge us for the next four years, from July 2011 to June 2015.
ERC on Other Side
Last June 28, Meralco filed its application for approval of its MAP for RY 2012 and the translation of that MAP into a distribution rate structure for its various customer classes. This was docketed as ERC Case No. 2011-088RC, a new case.
As expected this drew loud protests from those who insist that there are many unresolved issues in the ARR application, ERC Case No. 2010-069RC.
Arguments and objections ranged from the legal, technical, policy, mathematical, etc.
Being familiar with the issues, I know the oppositors have the law, jurisprudence, logic, equity, fairness on their side.
Unfortunately, ERC is on the other side.
Reviewing the whole process that has been laid out by ERC under its so-called internationally-accepted rate-setting methodology – the PBR or Performance Based Regulation – consumers do not stand a chance, at all.
Draft Determination
I will just cite a few choice quotes from some of the PBR documents, and leave the rest to your curious minds.
On December 15, 2010, in the “Review of Operating and Maintenance Expenditure (OPEX) Forecast: Third Regulatory Period” prepared by ERC’s Regulatory Operations Service, the ROS said: “In this review, the ROS has relied on the accuracy of the information provided to the ERC by MERALCO.
“While during the clarificatory meeting process, ROS queried on information provided in the revenue application that appeared to be inconsistent or inaccurate, ROS did not undertake an audit or attempt to verify the information on which it based itsrecommendations. ROS, therefore, cannot be held responsible for any conclusions based on misleading or inaccurate information provided.”
Also on December 15, 2010, in the “DRAFT DETERMINATION” on ERC Case No. 2010-069RC, signed by Chairman Zenaida Cruz-Ducut, Commissioners Alejandro Barin, Jose Reyes and Maria Teresa Castaneda, the ERC said in Item 1.3.2: “The Draft Determination is not a final resolution of MERALCO’s applications. Xxx Moreover, the Draft Determination does not have any impact or bearing on MERALCO’s current distribution wheeling charges or will not be used to set future distribution wheeling charges.”
Final Determination
On June 6, 2011, in Page 6 of the FINAL DETERMINATION signed by Chairman Cruz-Ducut and Commissioners Barin, Reyes, Castaneda and Rauf Tan, the ERC said: “The Final Determination is the final resolution of MERALCO’s application. It presents the ERC’s final decision on the price control arrangements that will apply to MERALCO for the Third Regulatory Period and will form the basis on which MERALCO will prepare and submit its distribution rate applications for the Third Regulatory Period. Xxx These rate structures are to be filed with the ERC by June 13, 2011. Xxx The implementation of the new rate structures for the July 2011 billing period is the scheduled start of the Third Regulatory Period (July 1, 2011)…..”
On December 8, 2008, Res. No. 20, S. 2008 was adopted unanimously by Chairman Cruz-Ducut and Commissioners Barin, Reyes, Castaneda and Tan, Modifying the “Rules for Setting Distribution Wheeling Rates for Privately Owned Distribution Utilities Entering Performance Based Regulation (RDWR), with Article VII on the Regulatory Reset Process, providing in Item 7.2.4, as follows: “At these hearings the ERC will have the opportunity to question the Regulated Entity on its proposed distribution tariffs and parties of record to the rate case will have the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses put forward by the Regulated Entity to defend its application.”
There is, however, a limitation to this cross-examination stated in Footnote 21 to this rule, to wit: “Note that the questions and cross-examination will only be allowed on aspects relevant to the rate application and not on earlier regulatory decisions or the basis on which these were made. For example, cross-examination on aspects decided by the ERC in its final determination on the price control arrangements for the relevant Regulatory Period will not be accepted at the hearings.”
Beyond Challenge
A Commission that started the rate process disavowing responsibility for its conclusions, virtually railroads the filing of the rate translation, eventually ends up elevating itself to an absurd level of infallibility, placing its determinations, no matter how infirm, beyond challenge on cross-examination.
Incredibly, ERC in PBR wants us to dissociate the so-called rate translation from ERC’s Rate Determinations which are the bases of that translation, especially when ERC has yet to resolve questions and issues raised by consumers on many major aspects of those Determinations.
This ERC PBR boggles the mind and beggars the poor.
If we did not have Mang Naro and Pete, we would already have drowned in all the oxymorons and non-sequiturs ERC has been spewing out lately.
And, we would have lost our shirts in the bargain, too.
Time we did something about our power rates, which is among the highest in the world.
Together with Dave Diwa, who has made his mark in consumer advocacies, we will organize – walk the talk – for Meralco customers.
Monday, July 18, 2011
The parasitic elite's victims
CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/18-24/2011
Even though the thought of it isn’t new, reports such as the one filed last July 13 by Emmie Abadilla of the Manila Bulletin entitled, “Local telecom interconnection rates highest in the Asia-Pacific region,” only serve to remind us all of the extent of the abuse that we as consumers suffer on a regular basis. That story provided us with data on how Philippine cellphone rates are at the top in the region, “averaging at $0.10, versus its neighbors who charge from $0.03 to $0.05.” Translated, it means we’re paying around P4.30 for every interconnection from competing telecoms providers compared to, say, our neighboring Malaysia or Thailand, which only charge P1.34 to P2.20 for the same service. And that means ours is double or even triple their cost!
Unfortunately, this pattern is the same in many other privatized utility services in the Philippines--be it in electricity, water, port handling, or even toll ways. Of course, many Filipinos are by now aware that the price or rate-gouging in public utilities is not only limited to electricity ever since the era of privatization began.
Many of the owners of such privatized utilities are, in fact, interconnected or interlocked at the level of the Board of Directors and stockholders. Meralco is the prime example of this: Practically all the major oligarchs-slash-corporations today are feasting on the company’s highest power rates in Asia. These are so high that even congressional data showing us having the second highest industrial/commercial rates next to Singapore simply fall short of the truth as the greater bulk of Meralco’s revenues comes from residential consumers, who pay for rates that are up to 20 times higher than that of the industrial/commercial sector--and yes, higher still than Singapore’s.
It is indeed a feeding frenzy for this pod of killer whales gorging on everything the public vitally needs for a decent, modern, and productive life. Increasing the cost of these basic utilities has undoubtedly begun to shrink the Filipino middle class and consign much of 65 percent of our urban poor to a life reminiscent of the “Stone Age.”
Government institutions, I would like to believe, do try to restrain the greed of these oligarchs and mega-corporations, as the evidence shows with regard to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC)’s attempt to bring down Philippine interconnection rates from P4.20 to P1 and text messaging charges from the current P0.35 to a more reasonable P0.15. This has forced some telecom companies to make their own proposals for a graduated decrease in their rates. Still, the NTC should force an immediate cut as these firms have long been feasting on the highest telecom rates in the Asia-Pacific for the past two decades.
Globe, for one, proposed a one-year grace period before reducing its text interconnection charges. But doesn’t that just translate to more needless billions, which texting consumers would have to pay for?
With the many rate increases the BSA III government is waiting to spring on the public--from MRT/LRT fares, to the Performance Based Regulation (PBR) rates in electricity, plus the Universal Charge that PSALM is itching to add to the mix--the burden on consumers will become even more unbearable.
When one observes how the privatization of utilities evolved in the Philippines, the pattern of consolidation of elite control of such assets--through political and financial chicanery; deception by trickery or sophistry; or both--was all brought down upon the consuming public after Edsa I, or the so-called Yellow “democratization” of the country.
Instead, what we had was the unending vilification of the State, where government institutions, as well as nationally-owned assets, were vigorously demonized and associated with the alleged excesses of former President Marcos and his cronies, despite the fact that the privatization frenzy that came after his fall had actually expanded the base of Edsa I cronies, chief of which are the old oligarchy--the Ayalas and Lopezes--as well as new globalist partners such as the Salim and Suharto groups of Indonesia and the transnational energy firm, Mirant.
All told, these oligarchs only gained new power over the State by capturing it and, with bribery of the corrupt political class, consisting of such well-entrenched families as the Cojuangcos, Lopezes, Macapagals, Roxases et al., through “elected” puppets such as FVR, Gloria, and now BSA III, drew up anti-people programs and policies such as the IPPs, EPIRA, and now BSA III’s Public-Private Partnerships.
The ongoing political, including judicial and financial, trickery and sophistry permeate the whole of our system today not just in privatized public utilities. In one of the largest economic sectors of our society, the ruling elite has just pulled off one of the greatest swindles in our history--the transfer of P70 billion of one portion of the Coconut Levy shares in San Miguel Corp. to Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. Imagine: Twenty-five million coconut industry dependents were sacrificed to satisfy just one man!
The whole system, from the legal practitioners, such as ACCRALaw, to the politicians it sprang like Enrile, Angara, Drilon, the late Raul Roco et al., to the entire judicial system, as well as the mainstream media, all collaborated to consummate this giant scam.
Another example is the Hacienda Luisita case, where the same ruling elite, with its politicians and lawyers, and the judicial system subverted the original stipulations of the government loans to the other Cojuangco clan for obtaining the said property, which involved the eventual transfer of the actual land to the farmers--not so-called “shares” of stocks.
This leads me to a quote I have repeatedly paraphrased for readers to instill this lesson of history: Arnold J. Toynbee in A Study of History wrote that “the cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal… proletariats” or the people alienated from the fruits of the economy.
The earlier the Filipino people and consumers, particularly the middle class, learn that they can no longer trust the ruling elite, the earlier they will be ready for meaningful change. All our present rulers are simply parasites; we need a new “savior” to gather our growing popular rage into an organized movement.
We, the non-elite and non-oligarchs, are all victims of the parasitic elite. It is time that we launch the final campaigns to pull down these parasites from their perches of power so that they will be finally crushed beneath our feet.
(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 “Franchising: Hope for Economic Recovery”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
Herman Tiu Laurel
7/18-24/2011
Even though the thought of it isn’t new, reports such as the one filed last July 13 by Emmie Abadilla of the Manila Bulletin entitled, “Local telecom interconnection rates highest in the Asia-Pacific region,” only serve to remind us all of the extent of the abuse that we as consumers suffer on a regular basis. That story provided us with data on how Philippine cellphone rates are at the top in the region, “averaging at $0.10, versus its neighbors who charge from $0.03 to $0.05.” Translated, it means we’re paying around P4.30 for every interconnection from competing telecoms providers compared to, say, our neighboring Malaysia or Thailand, which only charge P1.34 to P2.20 for the same service. And that means ours is double or even triple their cost!
Unfortunately, this pattern is the same in many other privatized utility services in the Philippines--be it in electricity, water, port handling, or even toll ways. Of course, many Filipinos are by now aware that the price or rate-gouging in public utilities is not only limited to electricity ever since the era of privatization began.
Many of the owners of such privatized utilities are, in fact, interconnected or interlocked at the level of the Board of Directors and stockholders. Meralco is the prime example of this: Practically all the major oligarchs-slash-corporations today are feasting on the company’s highest power rates in Asia. These are so high that even congressional data showing us having the second highest industrial/commercial rates next to Singapore simply fall short of the truth as the greater bulk of Meralco’s revenues comes from residential consumers, who pay for rates that are up to 20 times higher than that of the industrial/commercial sector--and yes, higher still than Singapore’s.
It is indeed a feeding frenzy for this pod of killer whales gorging on everything the public vitally needs for a decent, modern, and productive life. Increasing the cost of these basic utilities has undoubtedly begun to shrink the Filipino middle class and consign much of 65 percent of our urban poor to a life reminiscent of the “Stone Age.”
Government institutions, I would like to believe, do try to restrain the greed of these oligarchs and mega-corporations, as the evidence shows with regard to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC)’s attempt to bring down Philippine interconnection rates from P4.20 to P1 and text messaging charges from the current P0.35 to a more reasonable P0.15. This has forced some telecom companies to make their own proposals for a graduated decrease in their rates. Still, the NTC should force an immediate cut as these firms have long been feasting on the highest telecom rates in the Asia-Pacific for the past two decades.
Globe, for one, proposed a one-year grace period before reducing its text interconnection charges. But doesn’t that just translate to more needless billions, which texting consumers would have to pay for?
With the many rate increases the BSA III government is waiting to spring on the public--from MRT/LRT fares, to the Performance Based Regulation (PBR) rates in electricity, plus the Universal Charge that PSALM is itching to add to the mix--the burden on consumers will become even more unbearable.
When one observes how the privatization of utilities evolved in the Philippines, the pattern of consolidation of elite control of such assets--through political and financial chicanery; deception by trickery or sophistry; or both--was all brought down upon the consuming public after Edsa I, or the so-called Yellow “democratization” of the country.
Instead, what we had was the unending vilification of the State, where government institutions, as well as nationally-owned assets, were vigorously demonized and associated with the alleged excesses of former President Marcos and his cronies, despite the fact that the privatization frenzy that came after his fall had actually expanded the base of Edsa I cronies, chief of which are the old oligarchy--the Ayalas and Lopezes--as well as new globalist partners such as the Salim and Suharto groups of Indonesia and the transnational energy firm, Mirant.
All told, these oligarchs only gained new power over the State by capturing it and, with bribery of the corrupt political class, consisting of such well-entrenched families as the Cojuangcos, Lopezes, Macapagals, Roxases et al., through “elected” puppets such as FVR, Gloria, and now BSA III, drew up anti-people programs and policies such as the IPPs, EPIRA, and now BSA III’s Public-Private Partnerships.
The ongoing political, including judicial and financial, trickery and sophistry permeate the whole of our system today not just in privatized public utilities. In one of the largest economic sectors of our society, the ruling elite has just pulled off one of the greatest swindles in our history--the transfer of P70 billion of one portion of the Coconut Levy shares in San Miguel Corp. to Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. Imagine: Twenty-five million coconut industry dependents were sacrificed to satisfy just one man!
The whole system, from the legal practitioners, such as ACCRALaw, to the politicians it sprang like Enrile, Angara, Drilon, the late Raul Roco et al., to the entire judicial system, as well as the mainstream media, all collaborated to consummate this giant scam.
Another example is the Hacienda Luisita case, where the same ruling elite, with its politicians and lawyers, and the judicial system subverted the original stipulations of the government loans to the other Cojuangco clan for obtaining the said property, which involved the eventual transfer of the actual land to the farmers--not so-called “shares” of stocks.
This leads me to a quote I have repeatedly paraphrased for readers to instill this lesson of history: Arnold J. Toynbee in A Study of History wrote that “the cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal… proletariats” or the people alienated from the fruits of the economy.
The earlier the Filipino people and consumers, particularly the middle class, learn that they can no longer trust the ruling elite, the earlier they will be ready for meaningful change. All our present rulers are simply parasites; we need a new “savior” to gather our growing popular rage into an organized movement.
We, the non-elite and non-oligarchs, are all victims of the parasitic elite. It is time that we launch the final campaigns to pull down these parasites from their perches of power so that they will be finally crushed beneath our feet.
(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 “Franchising: Hope for Economic Recovery”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)
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