DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/10/2012
While the prosecution’s case in the Senate continues to crumble amid growing public revulsion, and with certain religious sects rallying in front of the Supreme Court (SC) against Malacañang’s assaults, the “useful idiot” in the Palace continues his inane programs serving US and Western interests.
The newest toys that BS Aquino III is acquiring for his policy of “territorial defense,” announced through his equally inane Defense Chief Voltaire Gazmin, include multi-purpose attack helicopters, destroyers and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Earlier announced was the acquisition of a squadron of F-16s and Hamilton class cutters (of which one had been delivered, refurbished, and christened BRP Gregorio del Pilar). All these are part of a P70-billion (roughly P10 billion annual) modernization budget for eight years.
Considering that an F-16 costs around $70 million (or P3 billion each, fetching P36 billion for a squadron of 12), very little else can really be bought, with the ones already acquired either obsolete or soon to be so by the end of eight years.
The F-16 is a “fourth-generation jet fighter;” its military aviation technology is now classified as 6th generation. Meanwhile, China, the perceived “territorial threat” of Malacañang (with the obvious prodding of the US), already has an undisclosed fleet of Chengdu J-20s.
Further, unlike the Philippines, most Asean countries are already flying 5th generation fighters. Malaysia, another country that has territorial issues with us, has its F/A-18D Hornets, MiG-29 Fulcrum and Sukhoi Su-30. India, for its part, has developed the Sukhoi PAK FA with its Russian partners.
Given these realities, acquiring a squadron of F-16s is merely G.I. Joe stuff — toys for the really small boys. And these are definitely no different from the World War II-vintage Hamilton cutters being bruited about by Malacañang. As for the UAVs already in the Philippines, even retired Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Gen. Ramon Farolan in his newspaper column suspects the recent bombing of the Abu Sayyaf lair in Sulu, allegedly killing its top three commanders, as being done by US UAVs — not PeNoy Broncos.
A Predator drone, widely used by the US in its operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, costs $4.5 million or P200 million each. Maybe it would cost a little less if it is only for surveillance and reconnaissance, but the drone itself is just a small part of an entire infrastructure consisting of satellite links, command and control, etc.
The yearning for multi-purpose attack helicopters by Malacañang and Gazmin is clearly out of synch with the real needs of the country, where several natural disasters affect hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, who are most often in desperate need of rescue and emergency airlift operations.
As for anti-submarine ships, Malacañang would do better to build up the Navy’s drydock facilities for repair and maintenance, as well as to focus on the building of ships to keep those still afloat floating and to produce new ones that run and don’t sink. In other words, we have to build our own shipbuilding capabilities.
It is now an old tenet that the strength of a nation is in its economic and industrial capacity for with it, a nation can build and buy the best. In the armaments arena, if you cannot have the latest then you are the most likely loser in a war.
The acquisition of G.I. Joe toy-weapons is useful only to the traders of these armaments, including US congressmen and senators who are peddling these in the Third World. G.I. Joe toys will do nothing to enhance the territorial defense of the Philippines especially when the real invaders have long infiltrated the country like the US, which already has its troops and drones in our territory all these years.
Even the purchase of G.I. Joe toy guns, ships and planes being directed by the real G.I. Joes is meant to sustain the Western economies and their defense industries now in dire straits — with funds taken from RP’s share in, say, Malampaya. It’s the classic “frying us in our own oil” scheme, where the US and its allies get to devour the feast.
If injected into the coconut industry to develop its downstream products and industries, P10 billion even just for a year would already start a massive economic upsurge.
There is a growing global demand for healthy nutritional alternatives that coconut provides, from the humble virgin coconut oil (VCO) to new anti-Alzheimer medication derived from it; to packaging and marketing of coconut water; to the development of “nutraceuticals” for the medical and beauty industries; to high-end chemicals with applications even in the explosives industry; to eco-textile against soil erosion for countries such as China. P10 billion for just one year injected into the local dairy industry can spur local production of dairy products that will save the country $1 billion in dairy imports every year.
Just think: Investments into these two grassroots agro-industrial commodities alone will help improve the income of at least 40 percent of the population in the agricultural sector and boost both the industrial and service sectors’ vitality.
Let us not play games with our nation’s future anymore. Only when we purge our nation of various foreign economic and political subversives can we get to provide ourselves with a stable economy — first, through a strong industrial base and, second, through a strong Armed Forces that will keep these pesky infiltrators out.
(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 “The struggle against the Rule of Farce;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Friday, February 10, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
While the show goes on
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)
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)
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)
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