The DFA’s information war

The DFA's information war

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-01-2015 WED)

 

It was the strangest news.  The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced that it was going into comic books publication to explain its South China Sea/West Philippine Sea (SCS/WPS) policy.  This followed an earlier announcement that the agency will start producing videos on the matter for distribution to the population.

 

The DFA engaging in such mass communication projects, when the nation's chief executive has other more competent agencies for such tasks, such as the Departments of Education and Local Government, is truly unprecedented.

 

Discussing this enigma with Philippine-China policy analysts, including Chito Sta. Romana, Rod Kapunan, and others, a consensus was evident: The DFA's impetus for this strange decision to produce videos and comic books must have been borne by the recent surveys showing the Filipino public, from Batanes to Jolo, favoring dialog and diplomacy over litigation and the contentious case filed against China at the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLoS).  The two recognized public opinion surveys seem to have the DFA worried that its anti-China tirade and propaganda need to be boosted.

 

In the Laylo Survey from May 8 to 18 among 1,500 respondents, 53 percent of Filipinos supported a diplomatic solution (i.e. dialog) versus 47 percent who "believe it 'is better' for the Philippines to have filed a case" against China over their disputed SCS/WPS claims.

 

Meanwhile, a June SWS poll reported 46 percent of Filipinos disapproving of the government's actions (mainly, filing the case at the ITLoS), which is a sea change from the SWS' 2013 survey where only 27 percent disapproved of the government's moves.  On the concern over war with China, the SWS surveyed the question in March 2015 and found that 84 percent of Filipinos were worried about it.

 

The Filipino public is learning, despite the "great wall of disinformation" set up by the DFA (with the Department of Defense's help, such as the September 2013 misreporting of US target anchors as "concrete foundations of China's new construction" to exaggerate tensions) and the distortions by mainstream media--with the latest being GMA News' "Taiwan claims Batanes" headline last June 3, failing to take into account an overlapping EEZ dispute, or "Chinese shoots guns at Philippine planes," which was later reported as a flare gun, then revised into a searchlight.  The list just goes on and on.

 

China has opened every chance for the Philippines to reopen "without any precondition" the dialog between the two countries over the issues, which Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua prominently reiterated in his visit to BS Aquino on Philippine Independence Day.

 

Looking deeper and wider, the BS Aquino government's obstinacy in keeping its door shut to dialog is a pretext for sustaining tensions, which serve to justify the "US' Pivot to Asia," as well as the drafting of a visiting forces agreement with Japan, all contrary to the wisdom and wishes of the Filipino people.

 

The Filipino people's concern over war brings me to the question about Tsinoys or Filipinos of Chinese descent that was triggered by Francisco Sionil Jose, who admits receiving $10,000 annually in the 1960s (worth P4 million today) from CIA front Congress for Cultural Freedom, when he argued last June 7 in the Inquirer that in case of a Philippine-China War, "many Chinese Filipinos will side with China."

 

Sionil Jose conveniently glosses over the fact that in the 1,500 years of engagement between the native inhabitants of the Philippines and the Chinese, there has never been any war.  Why then is he so overcome by the forebodings of such a war that 84 percent of Filipinos seek to avoid, to the point that he baselessly questions the fidelity of Tsinoys to the Republic?

 

The reputedly Amboy Sionil Jose knows more than he is saying and it becomes obvious when you read American geopolitical theoreticians such as Robert Kaplan.  In Kaplan's 2005 article, "How We Would Fight China," it says that "The Middle East is just a blip.  The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century."

 

Filipinos would do well to recall what then US President Lyndon B. Johnson said on his country's conduct of the Vietnam War: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves (later paraphrased to 'Let Asians fight Asians')."

 

The way Filipinos are being brainwashed against China by Amboys and born-again Japboys (such as BS Aquino III and Rafael Alunan III, being grandchildren of Japanese collaborators), US gofers (such as Albert del Rosario, Voltaire Gazmin, Annapolis cadet Roilo Golez), steak commandoes (such as Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Rodel Rodis), and mainstream media (namely, Inquirer and PhilStar), we will again see Filipinos dying for America's gain.

 

Genuine patriotic Filipinos, including Chinese-Filipinos, should expose these Amboys' information war and break their "Great Wall of Disinformation."

 

Every effort must be made to explain how cooperation with China will bring the bright and promising future the people seek, by becoming pillars of the Asian Century and the new multipolar BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) world.

 

Genuine pro-Filipino Filipinos should similarly produce videos, pamphlets, books, and comic books, and bring these to the masses, the middle class, as well as to social media.  The stakes are high; the US intends to suck us into a limited proxy way and it's something that we must prevent.

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Meralco’s new ‘elec-trick’ rates

 

Meralco's new 'elec-trick' rates

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 06-29-2015 MON)

 

There may be many issues that are equally important but certainly none more vital to the Philippines' economic welfare than the World's highest power rates perpetually being imposed on its people.

 

The 2016 political arena may have been enlivened by VP Jejomar Binay's much delayed offensive against the BS Aquino administration.  But what could have been an atomic bomb to boost his fortunes was if he had also started lambasting the sky high electricity rates.

 

Last week, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) came up with its new "elec-trick" scheme to ostensibly hoodwink the public into paying for its double "capex" (capital expense) included in its billing to consumers.

 

The business newspaper, which, like Meralco, belongs to the same financial "investment" group, announced this latest "elec-trick" reverse-psychology gimmick on its Web site.  On June 24, 2015 it said, "'Meralco could delay July bills' … (specifically) the issuance of July power bills for a couple of days as it awaits regulatory approval for its proposed lower distribution tariff…"

 

That delay has been deliberated planned by the power company to circumvent the consumer advocates and "good" Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) elements who have been calling on Meralco to account for past capex projects it has yet to fulfill, amounting to tens of billions of pesos.

 

Meralco obfuscates by propagating misleading news items, like this June 11 piece headlined in many newspapers that claims "Meralco seeks lower interim rate for distribution," which delighted even our power consumer advocates--until one of our stalwarts, Jojo Borja, visited the ERC and looked into Meralco's petition.

 

This "lower interim rate" is actually a P20-billion capex petition for 2016 (which is double of all past years since 2007 of P7 billion to P10 billion a year) without accounting for numerous unfulfilled capex projects promised in Regulatory Periods 3 and 2, the rate setting exercise.

 

Every four years Meralco is required to justify its rate petitions and undergo a review of what it has really spent on, supposedly conducted, and not done.  Consumer advocates attending the ERC hearings now demand this before any new capex is granted.

 

Meralco has long been getting "provisional" (now "interim") capex privileges despite failing to show accomplishments on the billions of pesos in supposed improvements.

 

In the present instance, Meralco is basing its rate petition on the PBR (Performance Based Rate) scheme, which in itself has also been put into question by consumer advocates over the past decade.

 

The "replacement cost" valuation of Meralco's assets has raised the company's asset base from P48 billion in 2006 (under the old RoRB or Return-on-Rate-Base framework) to P96 billion in 2007 by the stroke of a pen--without any additional or new assets.

 

That is the heart of the PBR scam under the former ERC chairman Rodolfo Albano (who shamelessly wanted his daughter-in-law to replace him), which the current and soon-to-retire chairperson Zenaida Ducut continues to the present day.

 

The 100-percent increase in asset valuation effectively doubled Meralco's distribution rate base.  After the PBR asset revaluation, Meralco distribution rates rose from P0.70 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in July 2007 to P1.167/kWh by June 2008.  And since Meralco annually claims new capex, its asset base has risen further; by 2011 it rose to P1.6464/kWh.

 

Between that period and the present with fluctuations in currency and other costs, the rate base declined slightly to the current P1.5562/kWh.

 

Meralco now claims it is reducing this (out of the goodness of its heart) to P1.3939/kWh but it is, as Jojo Borja explained to us, actually due to Meralco having already been awarded by the ERC billions in "under-recoveries" charged to "elec-tricked" consumers.

 

Consumer protection crusader Jojo Borja, along with the group United Filipino Consumers and Commuters (UFCC) led by RJ Javellana (whose group has been provided volunteer lawyers to help in filing cases versus Meralco), will be filing a new case to stop this new "elec-trick" gimmick to fast break the unprecedented P20 billion capex for 2016; and escape scrutiny and responsibility for eight years of 100-percent overpriced rate base, as well as 400-percent overpriced power transformers (which also go into Meralco's asset base) and 900-percent overpriced electric posts.

 

On the ERC situation, Borja has been giving us good feedback about several new officials in the institution who would like the agency to turn a new leaf.  They see the pending early-July retirement of Ducut as an opportunity to install an independent, consumer-sympathetic chairman at the helm.  However, presidential adviser and oligarchic factotum Rene Almendras is attempting to insert (illegally) a fellow factotum who is "contained" in the collegial board but who would be used by his Big Business bosses once becoming chairperson.

 

As it is, the executive director of the ERC is already seen as a factotum of the oligarchs, a situation which the better members of the body are advising the public to neutralize with the appointment of a truly independent chairperson.  My consultations with some consumer groups also raised the idea of a Consumers' Ombudsman, who will duly act on consumer complaints against these abusive and exploitative privatized utilities.

 

We really have to put a stop to these greedy power oligarchs' dirty "elec-tricks" if the nation is to survive.

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Keeping U.S. Imperialists away.

Keeping U.S. Imperialists away.

(Herman Tiu Laurel/ DieHard III/ Tribune column for 5-27-2015 Wednesday)

 

Harvard scholar Garikai Chengu wrote in Global Research, “Africa’s ‘Second Liberation’ against Today’s Neo-Colonialism…’On Monday March 25, many African Government offices, businesses and banks grind to a halt in order to commemorate Africa Day. In schools up and down the continent, little children are taught that heroic Africans liberated the continent from racist white colonial regimes… the worst crimes against humanity…”

 

Gaddafi and Libya is a symbol of Africa’s struggle, “Under Gaddafi, Libya was a shining example of how Africans can liberate themselves…in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank,… earmarked for the establishment of the African IMF and African Central Bank…. embarking on a continental mineral refinement program that… shifted the economic balance between Africa and the West… financially support any African governments that desired to undergo the redistribution stage of liberation.”

 

Here in Asia an awakened China is establishing a new perimeter defences against the resurgence of Western colonialism in the region. The recent attempt by a U.S. spy plane to provoke China flying over the Yongshu Island (Fiery Cross Reef and Kagitingan respectively to the U.S. and Philippines) was met with radio alerts from the Chinese who have a reclamation projects in that part of the disputed sea, marking an implicit air identification zone particularly for U.S. incursions.

 

To keep perspective we must recall the April 1, 2001 Hainan incident when a U.S. Navy EP-3EAries II Intel aircraft entered the airspace of the Hainan province of China, was met by two PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) J-811 interceptor fighters of which one collided with the U.S. plane and disappeared into the sea with its pilot. The U.S. Navy plane made a forced landing on Hainan Island and taken by the Chinese. Today, 2015, 1100 kilometers before any Chinese mainland shoreline U.S. spy planes will be spotted and identified.

 

              In the course of the recent controversies China’s navy chief Wu Shengli explained during consultations, to US chief of naval operations Jonathan Greenert that “[We] welcome international organisations, the United States and relevant countries to use these facilities in the future when conditions are right, to have co-operation on humanitarian search and rescue and disaster relief,…” The important point is – the U.S. can no longer sneak in like a thief in the night into just any place or area in this region.

 

               The BS Aquino government and its anti-China groups are raring to emulate the U.S. and challenge China’s de facto ADIZ. They’ll get radio warnings, but a de facto ADIZ is not a “no fly zone” that only the U.S. and Nato have been in the habit of imposing on other countries. The tragedy of Philippine foreign policy and much its Intelligentsia and media is that they cannot or do not want to see that China’s actions as part of the global anti-Imperialism and anti-neo-colonialism imperative.

 

              China and Asia have been victims of imperialism and neo-colonialism for five centuries, to lose sight of this is an invitation to a second imperialist and colonialist takeover. Anti-China rabble-rousers will insist now that China’s acts are imperialist aggression but we must ask: Does a country that invites everyone to share in the use of its air and sea port facilities acting like an imperialist and aggressor or a country? Or is it a country that knows Western Imperialism’s “pivot” is real and the gravest threat to the Asian Century.

 

              Does a country that invited since the 1980s, claimants to the disputed islands and atolls of the China Sea to talk and shelve the disputations and engage in joint development and mutual benefit from the isles and sea assets describe an imperialist and hegemonic country? No. It is the country that boasts of ten aircraft carrier armadas, sending them East, West and the Middle East to threaten other countries with “No Fly Zones” and bomb the hell out of millions of civilians. The U.S. and its European allieas can’t do that now to Asia.

 

South African president Jacob Zuma spoke of in an speech December 2014 said, “The emergence of China as a power…  offers an opportunity to African countries to be able to free themselves from the shackles that are really colonially designed,… Europe in particular, you are regarded as either a former subject or a second and third class kind of a person… the relationship between China and African countries,….We relate as brothers and sisters to do business… not because one is a poor cousin….”

 

Asia can help Africa and the World be free of imperialism and colonialism, by its self being free of U.S. and Western Imperialism and colonialism. China is key to keeping this so. (Tune to: Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tues. to Fri., 5-6 p.m.; GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 21, Sat., 8 p.m. and replay Sun., 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and Saturday date on YouTube; text reactions to 0917-8658664)