DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/6/2012
While the impeachment show goes on, the thieves are getting away with highway robbery right before the noses of the people. As it has been for the past two-and-a-half-decades, the target of the gigantic burglary are the crown jewels of the nation in the energy sector, this time focused on Mindanao’s electricity sector. Our Mindanao power consumer crusader and second generation power distribution company entrepreneur Mr. Uriel “Jojo” Borja of Iligan Light and Power, called us during the weekend that a two-hour “power curtailment” hit Iligan City last Saturday; but he railed that the Department of Energy (DoE) should already send the power barges 101, 102, 103, 104 to provide emergency power to Mindanao to avoid the power predators’ scheme to justify contracting new power generation capacity at double the cost per kilowatt hour to the present Mindanao power supply for the next twenty-five years.
Current power generation cost in Mindanao averages P2.60/kwH, but if the DoE and Psalm have their way, this will rise to around
P5/kwH, equal to Luzon and Visayas’ generation rate. Mindanao power traditionally cost only half that of other parts of the country because the bulk comes from hydroelectric power plants such as Agus-Pulangui. However, experts have said that the government agencies’ management of these hydroelectric dams and power plants, are failing to optimize its capacity by planned incompetence or willful negligence of corporatists named to head the DoE. Dredging and desilting have not been religiously done, reducing the capacities of these dams; while scheduling release and use of its water reserves for power have been invariably and suspiciously badly timed, exhausting them just as seasonal shortages are expected — seemingly to justify the frequent “red alert” the DoE issues of impending power curtailments.
Since 2009 the DoE has been issuing Mindanao power “red alerts,” citing expected rainfall deficits to be brought about by La Niña or El Niño. But, as Jojo Borja has been reporting, the rains have been coming every year, defying the predictions of the DoE. Last year was also supposed to be dry for Mindanao but Sendong came and devastated Cagayan de Oro and Iligan with a deluge resulting in murderous landslides.
Several weeks ago I wrote and disputed the power shortage “red alert” the DoE and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP, the private company that took over government’s transmission grid). Some people attribute the brownouts in some areas to lack of power transmission connections, but Borja does not see any real power supply shortage. What shortage there is are only short term and seasonal shortages that does not justify contracting new, overpriced power plants.
Napocor has power barges idle in Luzon waiting to be utilized for emergencies but the DoE secretary Almendras announced again last week that these power barges PB 101, 102, 103, 104 will be sold off by March 2012. To a normal, rational and logical mind Almendras’ plan is absolutely ridiculous. Almendras’ plan will cause the same tragic result as the 2009 sale of power barges 117 and 118 to the Aboitiz’s Therma Marine group for $ 30M which it turned around and revalued a few months later at $ 70M and used as its rate base for supplying emergency power to Mindanao — horrendously raising the power cost to consumers. Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro has objected to the sale of the power barges in 2009 and continues to object to the present hurried sale. He called for the four power barges still owned by government to be transferred to Mindanao to provide emergency power at the lower cost that Napocor provides, but the DoE is deaf to the plea.
Apart from insisting on selling the four power barges in March, Secretary Almendras of the DoE has opened the way for new power plants to be contracted and set up in Mindanao reminiscent of the IPPs in Luzon of the 90s during Ramos’ time. These will have “take or pay,” Power Purchase Agreements that consumers will see tacked on to their bills whether they use the electricity capacity or not — paying for the next 20 or 25 years. The scam that was inflicted mainly on Luzon in the mid-90s that saddled the country with $18-B Napocor debt, which reamins the same despite 90 percent Napocor assets privatized, is being inflicted on Mindanao this time. There is clearly a well established modus operandi in all this that involves the conspiracy of the international finance Mafia, the corrupt political authorities using the 10-year old Epira.
The Epira law bans government from the electricity generation service. Hence, the IPP power plants bought 10 to 20 years ago transferred to government will have to be sold off dirt cheap. The oligarchs who set up the original exorbitant IPP (independent power plants) will now be the one to buy those same power plants for a song.
We appeal to our dear Filipinos consumers and taxpayers: Wake up to the systematic and massive plunder we are constantly victims of by the conspiracy of the ruling oligarchs and their political agents in the two houses of Congress. Let us not fall into the trap of being mesmerized by political comedies and drama they are staging to distract the nation for their failure to protect the people from the avarice of the present ruling class. Let’s never be distracted again by the weapons of mass distraction the political theater provides; these trapos who spend hours daily grandstanding but give nary a day to hear and inquire into the Philippine scam of the century — the power rip off occurring daily in our midst.
(Tune to 1098AM, DWAD, Mon. to Fri. 5-6pm; watch GNN HTL edition of TNT, Destiny Cable, Saturdays 8:15pm and replay 11:15pm: “The struggle against the Rule of Farce”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our radio and GNN shows)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Our wayward defense strategy
BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
2/4-5/2012
There is no dispute that every state has the right to strengthen its defenses for its own protection. Maybe one could also give it to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alberto del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin that the Philippines, like any independent state, is free to enter into a military alliance for purposes of repelling possible aggression. There could be no debate on that. After all, it was through that mode which contributed to peace and security to countries like the Philippines, and on a wider scope stability for the region having in mind that the military entente we seek to renew with much vigor now with our former colonizer is to seek a balance of power in the region, vis-à-vis check the alleged growing military influence of China.
The problem however with our redefined policy is we are adopting a policy not in consonance to those postulates, but one that is abeyance to the renewed desire of the US to be present in the Asia-Pacific region to counter China’s alleged military buildup. From that standpoint, one could clearly see that the country has redefined its strategy to supplement that of the US, and not the US augmenting our defense requirements based on what essentially constitute our national and strategic interests. According to Secretary del Rosario, part of that new strategy is to augment the number of US troops participating in the military exercise that will be conducted with increased frequency on what he termed “rotating basis”, if only to skirt the constitutional ban allowing the presence of foreign military bases in this country.
Many political analysts are apprehensive at our defense posturing. They visibly see it as designed to accommodate the overall strategic plans of the US for the region. Some say the regular holding of joint military exercise, which has been going on since the American soldiers were allowed to return in 1998 under the guise of Visiting Forces Agreement by ousted President Joseph Estrada, could be treated as normal in the conduct of relations of countries having existing military alliances. But to hold war games in the disputed Spratly islands is a different story altogether. They could heighten the tension in our relations with China. Other countries, not keen in towing to that vexing US plan, fear it could equally jeopardize their relations with China.
Some contend that since the Spratly islands, specifically those islets occupied and renamed by us as Kalayaan group of islands, cover a disputed area and claimed by us as part of our territory, there is equally nothing that could prevent China from claiming that as part of its territory. While China, at the moment, accepts our presence not really in the context of status quo ante bellum, but of the necessity in keeping a modus vivendi to maintain peace and stability in the region, the entry of foreign forces, not a claimant to the disputed area, could altogether alter the situation. China could not just interpret the presence of US troops in the area as intrusion, but could treat our act of accommodating them as provocation. Unlike those territories that have been internationally accepted as part of our national territory, those disputed islands in the South China Sea hastily called by us, upon Washington’s instigation, as “West Philippine Seas” form a disputed territory that could easily lead to armed clash.
It is for this that our decision to hold a joint military exercise with the US in the area is pushing our relations with China to a dangerous threshold. That has now created a deep wedge with China, a situation many believe was premeditatedly sought by the US. Should that eventuality happen, the US would have succeeded in inducing China to classify us as a hostile state with us, having no choice but to serve as its advance defense perimeter in Pacific rim. Even if no actual shooting war erupts, the Philippines is bound to lose whatever bargaining leverage it has in seeking to negotiate for a peaceful settlement with China on a wide range of issues, all because of our reckless decision to invite the US forces to join us in holding a military exercise in the disputed area. Our conduct spells out a message there is nothing for us to negotiate as we now consider ourselves part of that demarcated forces stretched by the US to resurrect its xenophobic campaign to contain China.
Of course, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Brunei are also laying their respective claim on some of the disputed islands in the South China Sea. However, nobody appears to be eager in inviting the US to join them in their dispute with China. In fact, it is not even one of their options. On the contrary, such warmongering approach could only trigger an arms race with those lackey states picking up the tab for their bloated defense expenditures, a double-edged strategy that could stave off the US economy from finally falling deep into the gutter.
It is realpolitik that underscores their necessity in having to maintain close economic ties with China. They are more concerned in taking the pragmatic approach in dealing with the situation. While not one is willing to abandon the process of peaceful dialogue to settle their dispute with China, they are equally not willing to take action that would antagonize their giant neighbor, and lose altogether the bigger stakes they enjoy in their current dealings with that prosperous country.
Nobody is willing to confront that country knowing it would only serve to satisfy Washington’s desperate attempt to round up its lackeys in the Asia-Pacific region and to block China’s exorable emergence as a superpower. Unfortunately, only this fanatically blind country swallowed hook, line and sinker the outmoded gambit of provoking another war in Asia to derail the economic miracle it gained after the US debacle in Vietnam.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Rod P. Kapunan
2/4-5/2012
There is no dispute that every state has the right to strengthen its defenses for its own protection. Maybe one could also give it to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alberto del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin that the Philippines, like any independent state, is free to enter into a military alliance for purposes of repelling possible aggression. There could be no debate on that. After all, it was through that mode which contributed to peace and security to countries like the Philippines, and on a wider scope stability for the region having in mind that the military entente we seek to renew with much vigor now with our former colonizer is to seek a balance of power in the region, vis-à-vis check the alleged growing military influence of China.
The problem however with our redefined policy is we are adopting a policy not in consonance to those postulates, but one that is abeyance to the renewed desire of the US to be present in the Asia-Pacific region to counter China’s alleged military buildup. From that standpoint, one could clearly see that the country has redefined its strategy to supplement that of the US, and not the US augmenting our defense requirements based on what essentially constitute our national and strategic interests. According to Secretary del Rosario, part of that new strategy is to augment the number of US troops participating in the military exercise that will be conducted with increased frequency on what he termed “rotating basis”, if only to skirt the constitutional ban allowing the presence of foreign military bases in this country.
Many political analysts are apprehensive at our defense posturing. They visibly see it as designed to accommodate the overall strategic plans of the US for the region. Some say the regular holding of joint military exercise, which has been going on since the American soldiers were allowed to return in 1998 under the guise of Visiting Forces Agreement by ousted President Joseph Estrada, could be treated as normal in the conduct of relations of countries having existing military alliances. But to hold war games in the disputed Spratly islands is a different story altogether. They could heighten the tension in our relations with China. Other countries, not keen in towing to that vexing US plan, fear it could equally jeopardize their relations with China.
Some contend that since the Spratly islands, specifically those islets occupied and renamed by us as Kalayaan group of islands, cover a disputed area and claimed by us as part of our territory, there is equally nothing that could prevent China from claiming that as part of its territory. While China, at the moment, accepts our presence not really in the context of status quo ante bellum, but of the necessity in keeping a modus vivendi to maintain peace and stability in the region, the entry of foreign forces, not a claimant to the disputed area, could altogether alter the situation. China could not just interpret the presence of US troops in the area as intrusion, but could treat our act of accommodating them as provocation. Unlike those territories that have been internationally accepted as part of our national territory, those disputed islands in the South China Sea hastily called by us, upon Washington’s instigation, as “West Philippine Seas” form a disputed territory that could easily lead to armed clash.
It is for this that our decision to hold a joint military exercise with the US in the area is pushing our relations with China to a dangerous threshold. That has now created a deep wedge with China, a situation many believe was premeditatedly sought by the US. Should that eventuality happen, the US would have succeeded in inducing China to classify us as a hostile state with us, having no choice but to serve as its advance defense perimeter in Pacific rim. Even if no actual shooting war erupts, the Philippines is bound to lose whatever bargaining leverage it has in seeking to negotiate for a peaceful settlement with China on a wide range of issues, all because of our reckless decision to invite the US forces to join us in holding a military exercise in the disputed area. Our conduct spells out a message there is nothing for us to negotiate as we now consider ourselves part of that demarcated forces stretched by the US to resurrect its xenophobic campaign to contain China.
Of course, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Brunei are also laying their respective claim on some of the disputed islands in the South China Sea. However, nobody appears to be eager in inviting the US to join them in their dispute with China. In fact, it is not even one of their options. On the contrary, such warmongering approach could only trigger an arms race with those lackey states picking up the tab for their bloated defense expenditures, a double-edged strategy that could stave off the US economy from finally falling deep into the gutter.
It is realpolitik that underscores their necessity in having to maintain close economic ties with China. They are more concerned in taking the pragmatic approach in dealing with the situation. While not one is willing to abandon the process of peaceful dialogue to settle their dispute with China, they are equally not willing to take action that would antagonize their giant neighbor, and lose altogether the bigger stakes they enjoy in their current dealings with that prosperous country.
Nobody is willing to confront that country knowing it would only serve to satisfy Washington’s desperate attempt to round up its lackeys in the Asia-Pacific region and to block China’s exorable emergence as a superpower. Unfortunately, only this fanatically blind country swallowed hook, line and sinker the outmoded gambit of provoking another war in Asia to derail the economic miracle it gained after the US debacle in Vietnam.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Friday, February 3, 2012
Rotten people, not system
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/3/2012
I was happy with Eric Espina’s regular 50-minute GNN (Global News Network) public affairs show last Tuesday, where he had a special and very interesting guest. Former national security adviser Norberto Gonzales appeared for the first time since the end of the Edsa II regime that extended beyond the normal term of an administration. With a self-conscious and put-on soft-spokeness to sound wise and fair, Gonzales commented on what he says are growing ills of society. Playing ostensibly unaware or “dedma” that he was part of nine years of governance that had aggravated those very problems, he seemed to discount any personal responsibility and, in a very deft way, blamed “The System,” saying, “I see a lot of good leaders in the country but they have to accept corruption because of the ‘system.’” He mouthed this as if the “system” would persist if there were no people sustaining or feeding on it.
This column has been a dedicated critic of the “system,” too; but it also recognizes that the rotten system would not have survived one more day if there were no avaricious powerful forces commanding morally and intellectually weak opportunists manning it. What is the system that prevails in this country today? It is one which everybody describes as corrupt; it is one that spawns deep and growing poverty, leading to heightened internal conflict and criminality, and culminates in a decaying society.
By saying that no person is at fault, Gonzales would like to fool the people into thinking that the “system” is an evil computer brain that operates by itself and runs every corrupt operation that is causing government and corporatist corruption, poverty, moral collapse, jueteng, drug smuggling, the passage of corrupt laws (such as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act or Epira), or billing power and water consumers with price gouging rates, ad nausea.
By blaming the system, Gonzales is merely entertaining delusions of having no personal responsibility at all — despite being one of the closest and most powerful confidants of Gloria Arroyo, whose nine years of governance were marked by massive swindles — from the Epira, the expanded value added tax (eVAT) expansions, the Impsa/Fertilizer/NBN-ZTE and countless other scams, the 2004 massive election cheating, the first Basilan massacre in 2007, the Angelo Reyes-General Garcia looting of the military’s coffers, the MoA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) deal with the Malaysians and the US, to a litany of grave deeds that resulted in the highest hunger and poverty rates in the country beginning 2006. All these continue to this day and are aggravated by the present Malacañang occupants who have the same policies as Arroyo.
Thus, if we were to go by Gonzales’ logic, even the present BSA III government he criticizes should not be blamed for the many crises now arising.
After all, wouldn’t the “system” be to blame for the Luneta hostage massacre in 2010 and not BSA III himself or the city mayor who treated him to siopao at Emerald Garden while the hostage taker was running amuck?
Or, was it simply a computer glitch that made our GDP (gross domestic product) growth fall to a disastrous 3.7 percent for the whole of 2011? Was it merely a glitch in the system of the PCOS machines in the 2010 elections that prompted UP and Ateneo IT experts to discover extraneous software apparently used in the machine counting and the duplicate sites in transmission?
At the risk of getting too far ahead in history, we only need to go back to Edsa II in 2001 when the Constitution was trashed. Did the Rule of Law go to the trash bin all by itself, leading to the Rule of Force and then of Money, as evidenced by the approval of the Epira and other pro-Big Business laws by Congress?
Voicing real concern for the Filipinos’ travails should not be soft-spoken anymore but an explosive burst of indignation. The rotten system persists because there are rotten people who sustain it by collaborating, abetting, and aiding it in order to attain selfish aspirations of power and opulence amid growing want. One only needs to look at the some military generals’ family, some Noynoy justices, or Congress, who have used power to profit massively; or those who have endorsed manifold evils, like what Lacson did in condoning the 2004 Comelec fraud, or Congress taking pork barrel and corporatist money (for the Epira); or the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas pushing unnecessary debt; or the Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission giving free rein to oil and power companies to plunder consumers massively, ad infinitum.
Who are those rotten people manning the “system?” From Malacañang decision makers to Congress and the Senate, to the top honchos in the judiciary, to the generals in the military and police hierarchy, to the top execs of the Makati Business Club, to the top operators of “civil society,” all these comprise the core of the rotten system. But are there alternatives to these? In other words, are there still good people around to man “a healthy system?”
I can think of countless of them working selflessly, like Mang Naro Lualhati and Jojo Borja among many others in the crusade against electricity plunder; Alan Paguia sacrificing for Rule of Law; Bono Adaza opposing constitutional abuse in the Corona impeachment case; many Freedom from Debt Coalition members who are fighting debt slavery; our Sulo group volunteers; the Tribune; and millions of ordinary Filipinos who ONLY need new, fresh leadership to break through.
Listen again: It’s the rotten people that keep the system rotten.
(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to 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., on “RP’s geopolitical challenge;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/3/2012
I was happy with Eric Espina’s regular 50-minute GNN (Global News Network) public affairs show last Tuesday, where he had a special and very interesting guest. Former national security adviser Norberto Gonzales appeared for the first time since the end of the Edsa II regime that extended beyond the normal term of an administration. With a self-conscious and put-on soft-spokeness to sound wise and fair, Gonzales commented on what he says are growing ills of society. Playing ostensibly unaware or “dedma” that he was part of nine years of governance that had aggravated those very problems, he seemed to discount any personal responsibility and, in a very deft way, blamed “The System,” saying, “I see a lot of good leaders in the country but they have to accept corruption because of the ‘system.’” He mouthed this as if the “system” would persist if there were no people sustaining or feeding on it.
This column has been a dedicated critic of the “system,” too; but it also recognizes that the rotten system would not have survived one more day if there were no avaricious powerful forces commanding morally and intellectually weak opportunists manning it. What is the system that prevails in this country today? It is one which everybody describes as corrupt; it is one that spawns deep and growing poverty, leading to heightened internal conflict and criminality, and culminates in a decaying society.
By saying that no person is at fault, Gonzales would like to fool the people into thinking that the “system” is an evil computer brain that operates by itself and runs every corrupt operation that is causing government and corporatist corruption, poverty, moral collapse, jueteng, drug smuggling, the passage of corrupt laws (such as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act or Epira), or billing power and water consumers with price gouging rates, ad nausea.
By blaming the system, Gonzales is merely entertaining delusions of having no personal responsibility at all — despite being one of the closest and most powerful confidants of Gloria Arroyo, whose nine years of governance were marked by massive swindles — from the Epira, the expanded value added tax (eVAT) expansions, the Impsa/Fertilizer/NBN-ZTE and countless other scams, the 2004 massive election cheating, the first Basilan massacre in 2007, the Angelo Reyes-General Garcia looting of the military’s coffers, the MoA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) deal with the Malaysians and the US, to a litany of grave deeds that resulted in the highest hunger and poverty rates in the country beginning 2006. All these continue to this day and are aggravated by the present Malacañang occupants who have the same policies as Arroyo.
Thus, if we were to go by Gonzales’ logic, even the present BSA III government he criticizes should not be blamed for the many crises now arising.
After all, wouldn’t the “system” be to blame for the Luneta hostage massacre in 2010 and not BSA III himself or the city mayor who treated him to siopao at Emerald Garden while the hostage taker was running amuck?
Or, was it simply a computer glitch that made our GDP (gross domestic product) growth fall to a disastrous 3.7 percent for the whole of 2011? Was it merely a glitch in the system of the PCOS machines in the 2010 elections that prompted UP and Ateneo IT experts to discover extraneous software apparently used in the machine counting and the duplicate sites in transmission?
At the risk of getting too far ahead in history, we only need to go back to Edsa II in 2001 when the Constitution was trashed. Did the Rule of Law go to the trash bin all by itself, leading to the Rule of Force and then of Money, as evidenced by the approval of the Epira and other pro-Big Business laws by Congress?
Voicing real concern for the Filipinos’ travails should not be soft-spoken anymore but an explosive burst of indignation. The rotten system persists because there are rotten people who sustain it by collaborating, abetting, and aiding it in order to attain selfish aspirations of power and opulence amid growing want. One only needs to look at the some military generals’ family, some Noynoy justices, or Congress, who have used power to profit massively; or those who have endorsed manifold evils, like what Lacson did in condoning the 2004 Comelec fraud, or Congress taking pork barrel and corporatist money (for the Epira); or the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas pushing unnecessary debt; or the Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission giving free rein to oil and power companies to plunder consumers massively, ad infinitum.
Who are those rotten people manning the “system?” From Malacañang decision makers to Congress and the Senate, to the top honchos in the judiciary, to the generals in the military and police hierarchy, to the top execs of the Makati Business Club, to the top operators of “civil society,” all these comprise the core of the rotten system. But are there alternatives to these? In other words, are there still good people around to man “a healthy system?”
I can think of countless of them working selflessly, like Mang Naro Lualhati and Jojo Borja among many others in the crusade against electricity plunder; Alan Paguia sacrificing for Rule of Law; Bono Adaza opposing constitutional abuse in the Corona impeachment case; many Freedom from Debt Coalition members who are fighting debt slavery; our Sulo group volunteers; the Tribune; and millions of ordinary Filipinos who ONLY need new, fresh leadership to break through.
Listen again: It’s the rotten people that keep the system rotten.
(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to 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., on “RP’s geopolitical challenge;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
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