| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
As I continued my pencil pushing on the
power plunder that has raged on for over 10 years — now with a
particularly renewed ferocity in Mindanao, I realize that the P80,000
per electricity consumer I computed in my last column speaks only half
the story.
The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management
(Psalm) Corp. debt today stands at $18 billion (P800 billion), despite
10 years of privatizing National Power Corp. (Napocor) assets by almost
90 percent. As it is, authorities are now in a quandary as to how to
charge this to us consumers without blowing the lid on the swindle of
the century. Their latest attempt, therefore, is to charge 20 percent of
this to government, which, of course, means the taxpayers. As for the
rest, well, the shysters at Psalm are still working with Congress on
passing this on to consumers via a so-called Universal Charge. In short,
they will try to make 10 million electricity customers pay for all this
by hook or by crook. But that’s not all.
The other half of the
story involves the oligarchs who got these $18 billion worth of Napocor
assets that we as taxpayers and power consumers paid for since the state
power company was established by government in 1936.
What
Filipino power consumers have really been plundered of is not only
P80,000 per paying customer and, to a lesser extent, per individual
taxpayer (as even the consumption of candies, diapers etc. have VAT
included). Because we are being made to pay for P80,000 through the
various surreptitious means that Psalm is devising with the corrupt
bureaucracy, including Malacañang, the Upper and Lower Houses of
Congress, the Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Judiciary, the
oligarchs on the other hand are already enjoying cash flow benefits and
profits from collections on power generating assets they have taken
over.
Since the private conglomerates now “owning” our erstwhile
public assets took them over on credit, based on sovereign guarantees
and guaranteed payments from consumers, we are also actually paying for
those assets now in list of acquisitions. This is a classic lagaring
Hapon on us as each consumer is actually going to pay double the amount
at P180,000!
Some of these asset transfers — such as the national
transmission grid that used to be under the National Transmission Corp.
but now in the hands of the private National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines, which was supposed to have brought in $4 billion for Psalm
and the government — have not been paid since their turnover in January
2009.
In fact, we, the taxpayers, have had to foot the bill for
Psalm’s operations to the tune of P75 billion to P85 billion each year
since the state agency has had to borrow for its operational funds, with
the approval of Congress.
You see, we are being cooked in our own fat while the oligarchs are fattening themselves, also on our monthly payments.
And
while we are computing and discovering the mounting sums which the
oligarchs and their corrupt political agents in government are
plundering from the nation’s electricity consumers and taxpayers,
Mindanaoans are at present beginning to feel the full force of the power
swindle in their area.
“Power curtailment” of four to eight-hour
brownouts regularly hit parts of Mindanao today. I have been receiving
reports from our colleagues there, particularly Mr. Jojo Borja, early
this week that Mindanaoans are now up in arms over the situation since
the rains have not stopped and the hydro-electric plants that include
the vast Agus-Pulangui complex should already be supplying enough power.
At
the same time, Mindanaoans are well aware that there are four emergency
power barges with Napocor that can immediately be deployed to supply
emergency power there. Yet, the Department of Energy and Psalm refuse to
do so, as both await the privatization of these barges by March.
Confirming
Borja’s report was the appeal aired last Sunday by the Mindanao
business community and the island’s 33 electric cooperatives (led by the
Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives) to look into the
region’s power crisis. They say that it is not only due to the reduced
capacity of the hydro-electric plants which have not been maintained
properly but also because of the “derating” or control of other power
plants in Mindanao.
The two power barges privatized to the
Aboitizes in 2009 are not generating power because the electric
cooperatives cannot buy from them through NGCP as the grid’s power rates
are not affordable to Mindanao consumers. The ECs, thus, bear the brunt
of power consumers’ anger when they pass on the generation charge from
Therma Marine Corp., also of the Aboitiz Group.
Meanwhile, Malacañang, the Senate, and the House merely display their grandstanding antics in the Corona impeachment hearings.
When
Pampanga Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr. came out with a bill against what he
calls the negative typecasting of Philippine solons as crooks, I
remembered asking: What was the vote of his fellow congressmen on the
Electric Power Industry Reform Act? Weren’t they reported to have each
received a P500,000-payola for the onerous law’s approval, as exposed by
Rep. Rene Magtubo in 2001? How about the P10-million National
Electrification Administration projects per congressman ordered released
by Gloria Arroyo to those who voted favorably for the measure?
Another
one of Gonzales’ harebrained colleagues, sadly, seconded him, saying
there are many “crabs” among the public dragging the reputation of
congressmen down out of envy. These legislators should instead look at
themselves and see that they are the ones dragging the entire country
down with their constant scrambling for huge scraps of pork and other
large morsels from the national budget for themselves. We challenge
these whining solons to a face-to-face debate anytime, anywhere on who
the crabs really are — the public or their ilk — so that they can be put
in their proper places.
(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 “Hocus PCOS: New proof of cheating?;” visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120224com6.html
