DIE HARD III |
|
Herman Tiu Laurel |
03/30/2012
The electricity spaghetti hit the ceiling fan last week, and the
stench of the power oligarchs reeks all over the place. Now it’s not
just electricity consumers charging the oligarchs and their captive
government officials with conspiracy; local officials, such as North
Cotabato Gov. Emilou Taliño-Mendoza and General Santos City Mayor
Darlene Antonino-Custodio, are saying that the Mindanao power crisis is
“intentional.” Even Sen. Koko Pimentel openly agrees with Mindanao
Development Authority (MinDA) Chairman Lualhati Antonino’s assertion
that the “artificial shortage” is the National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines’ (NGCP) means to “have the Agus-Pulangi Power Plant
privatized.”
The NGCP is by no means the main culprit. It goes
way up to the oligarchy and the international corporatist mafia behind
it. We must remember that the NGCP Frankenstein was sewn together by
Fidel Ramos’ Monte Oro Corp., with the Carlyle Group catalyzing the
entry of the State Grid Corp. of China, together with the Sy Group, to
become the NGCP.
Monstrous as it became, the NGCP Frankenstein is
but the son. The mother Frankenstein is the Electric Power Industry
Reform Act (Epira), which, in its time, was sewn together by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), Asian Development
Bank (ADB), the illegal Gloria Arroyo regime, the oligarchs and their
Yellow “civil society,” together with the corrupt 12th Congress of Edsa
II. They managed to use the thread of the ADB’s $900-million power
sector loan and the IMF-WB’s $300-million rehabilitation loan release as
conditions for the enactment of the Epira into law.
The local
power oligarchs were also alleged to have contributed to a payola of
P500,000 for every member of Congress under Speaker Sonny Belmonte,
which emoluments were further spruced up by Gloria’s P10-million per
congressman “O, Ilaw” project. And, like the current railroaded Corona
“Articles of Impeachment,” it is doubtful that even half-a-dozen of the
representatives or senators who signed the Epira even read it.
As
for media, the oligarch-controlled “presstitute” (press-prostitute)
merely suppressed the truth. Only a few, like this columnist and the
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), campaigned in the streets against it.
The
argument for Epira was that the monopoly enjoyed by the government’s
National Power Corp. (Napocor) was too big to be efficient and had to be
broken up into smaller units. Fast forward to today and the chairman of
the Senate energy committee, Serge Osmeña, himself a champion of the
Epira, now argues for the expansion of the split-up units.
In his
defense of Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Rene Almendras’
disastrous handling of the Mindanao power crisis, Osmeña claims the
Energy chief “is aware of economies of scale and that electricity would
be cheaper for everyone if distributed over a bigger transmission grid
than a smaller one…”
The shift in tone is obviously because much
of the elite — a class to which Osmeña belongs — have already formed an
oligopoly in the sector and are using their clout to blackmail the
entire nation into swallowing the “highest power cost in Asia.”
Osmeña
says, “The national reform policy on electricity… was to harness the
finances and management talents of the private sector in ensuring that
the country would be supplied in a timely manner with dependable,
quality and reasonably priced power…” Really?
Independent power
producers (IPP) are private utility companies established on the basis
of state “sovereign guarantees” and/or securitization of captive
consumers’ aggregate payments in a contract period. Here, securitization
comes in “the form of financial instruments used to obtain funds from…
investors… backed by amortizing cash flows.” These cash flows, in turn,
are derived from the pockets of millions of electricity consumers.
Historically,
securitization was done by the Republic of the Philippines to launch
the Napocor; and as government did not shell out any money, only acting
as an intermediary of the funds from power consumers, we can say that
the power sector was never (repeat, NEVER) subsidized.
When the
state’s power assets were still under Napocor control, the price of
electricity in the Philippines was not only competitive but one of the
lowest in Asia. Today, after Epira, power costs in this country have
shot up way into the stratosphere.
In the case of Mindanao, we now
see the IPPs blackmailing consumers, the way the privatized Aboitiz
Group Power Barges 117 and 118 and the now Lopez-run Mt. Apo Geothermal
are being used to force Mindanaoans into accepting 20-year, exorbitantly
priced contracts, or else continue being denied much-needed
electricity.
But wait. Isn’t price a reflection of these
privateers’ much-vaunted “efficiency?” If so, aren’t they and other
utilities like the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) guilty of doing their
jobs at a very high cost to the nation and, in fact, destroying its
entire economy?
Therefore, given that these oligarchs are only
“efficient” from the point of view of profit extraction, totally missing
the mark of providing efficient and reliable electricity at the least
cost to consumers, why should we accept any of this, in view of the fact
that things have gone from bad to worse despite 90 percent of the power
sector being privatized?
As if to further cover up the litany of
lies that is the Epira, Osmeña raises another point, saying that
“Napocor was bankrupt and that even if it sold all of its assets, it
still could not cover its liabilities.”
Napocor was a very healthy
and viable public corporation before Corazon Aquino, her Yellow gang,
and her oligarch-patrons took over the reins of the Philippine Republic.
They abolished the Ministry of Energy and placed its functions under
the Office of the President to ensure an efficient dismantling of the
nation’s energy development program. They established almost a dozen
IPPs and cancelled half a dozen major energy projects (including the
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant). All these led to a “Dark Age” under a
Cory-appointed oligarch as Napocor head. What followed during the Ramos
era were 43 more plundering IPP contracts that were to be the most
massive bloodletting of Napocor’s resources to this day — via the
$18-billion so-called stranded debts that Epira was supposed to have
erased but never did. All these have transpired while the oligarchs have
not paid $10 billion of what they owe government for these privatized
assets.
The current Speaker, Sonny Belmonte, when pressed for a
response to the crescendo of complaints from Mindanao lawmakers, said,
“We have to investigate (the power crisis) to know what is going on.”
Let’s see when the investigation will start and how far it will go
(considering who the distribution source of the Epira payola in 2001
really is).
Still, on a slightly positive note, despite the elder
Sen. Nene Pimentel’s signing of the Epira, we are hopeful that the
younger Pimentel will take up the energy cause in the Upper Chamber this
time. My only criticism is that he may have weakened his position when
he stated, “If I need to personally beg to Senator Osmeña to hold the
inquiry before the Holy Week break, I will have to.”
Why even beg, Koko? Your duty lies with the people and no one else.
(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., after Lent, on
“Mindanao power blackmail? Part II;” visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120330com6.html