| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
02/20/2012
We were never confused. We had always
known. Now, thanks to BS Aquino III, everyone now knows the naked
truth: He is a wimp, and has always been a wimp. And as the powers
behind the exploitative political-economic establishment wanted to
ensure that the Philippines would have a wimp of a president, this was
the reason for his becoming the favorite of the elite, who poured in
lots of media and money support toward this end.
Before long, the
wimp was bestowed with power, and he brought in a whole set of wimps to
share political power with him. From behind the scenes, the shadows most
probably murmured, “What are we in power for?” and “you’ve got 75
percent popularity, don’t squander it,” into his wimpy ears. And soon,
another dangerous thought was implanted: “Why not go for it? Uncle Sam’s
giving us the chance. The Makati Business Club is behind us when we
begin to terrorize the Supreme Court (SC). After that, we conquer all.”
Thus, the dictator-wimp was born.
Addressing the colegialas of La
Consolacion College, Manila, Aquino III lambasted SC Chief Justice (CJ)
Renato Corona, and asserted his fearless forecast that the CJ will be
convicted. He then lashed out at his critics, saying they are getting
confused in their name-calling: “(You say) I’m a spoiled brat, immature.
You have so many criticisms against me. In 2010 (you said) I am wimpy,
very weak. In 2011, I am a dictator. In 2012, I am now a wimpy
dictator.”
Well, have I got news for him: First of all, Aquino
III, you are the one who is confused. Why, you even have your qualifier
and noun reversed. Still, you are a wimp first and foremost, one who
thinks he can build a new dictatorship to follow his mother’s
revolutionary government. Gladly, few are following though, and even
fewer are scared into submission. Because of that, you’ve gone even
deeper into your wimp-ishness in hurling your threats and harangues
before an audience of colegialas and not us — the genuine critical
media.
You are not just “very weak.” After your antics against the
SC, you have become even weaker. You also made yourself so much weaker
after saddling the nation with a 3.7-percent gross domestic product
(GDP) growth in 2011 after your gross mismanagement of the economy.
By
the end of 2012, you will most certainly collapse as even your own
National Economic Development Authority (Neda) could only make out a 3
percent to 5 percent growth rate for the most critical year of 2012, and
in its over wide statistical stretch, reflects a nervous, baseless
guesswork, which only betrays a total absence of clear economic plans.
You
claim that with Corona in the SC, it would be “extremely difficult, if
not impossible,” to pursue reforms. Yet, despite the pressing need for
one reform most urgent for the people, the reform in the electricity
sector to bring down the “highest power rate in Asia,” it was your
appointee to the SC, Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, who decided on a
crucial consumer petition in favor of the power oligarchs and its
captive Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).
In August of 2011,
Sereno was ponente to an SC Second Division decision junking consumer
protection groups’ petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO)
against the 26.9-centavo Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) rate increase and
its overcharge beyond the 12-percent Return-on-Rate Base (RoRB) formula
affirmed by the SC in 2003, on the basis of the ERC’s violation of the
consumers’ right to due process in refusing consumers opportunity to
present their opposition. Though the high court admitted that the ERC
“prematurely” issued the assailed decision “since the period for the
petitioners to file their comment/opposition had not lapsed then,”
Sereno still decided against the consumer groups.
The worst part
of it all was when Sereno chastised these groups for supposedly not
being “vigilant enough,” despite the fact that they used their own time
and resources, in contrast to Meralco, which the ERC allowed to charge
consumers its two dozen lawyers at the hearing and its P2.2-billion
“regulatory liaison” fund (for what, it was never explained). Worse,
Aquino III is a wimp in pretending not to see (and definitely not acting
on) the electricity and power sector oligarchs’ plundering. As we
speak, the power pirates are pushing the transfer of the IPP
(independent power producer) plunder debt from the Power Sector Asset
and Liabilities Management (Psalm) Corp. to taxpayers — part of a
P140-billion component of the overall $18-billion debt left with Psalm
despite 10 years of privatization of almost 90 percent of the National
Power Corp. (Napocor)’s assets.
All these debts are supposed to be
passed on to power consumers through the so-called Universal Charge,
but with power rates already the “highest in Asia,” adding this $18
billion or P800 billion (roughly P80,000 per household — yes, that’s how
much the Electric Power Industry Reform Act has cost us each) would
make Philippine power rates the highest in the world even if spread out
over the next 20 years.
Aquino III is a wimp for not acting to
protect the nation and the people, particularly the nation’s small
miners, and stop global mining mega-corporations from gaining headway in
controlling millions of hectares of our nation’s rich mineral deposits.
The record of these mega-mining corporations’ destruction of
million-hectare pristine areas with their collapsing tailings dams in at
least 35 incidents all over the world is a matter of record.
Our
water aquifers built up over eons will be poisoned, with threats of
massive toxic tailings inundating hundreds of thousands of hectares of
agricultural lands, condemning for eternity such areas with mercury and
other chemical contamination, and with thousands of Filipino lives put
in peril.
The list of BSA III’s wimp-ishness would not fit into
this small space. So while his dictatorial tantrums are going out in a
whimper fast, the nation should prepare a spanking for this little brat
until he learns his lessons.
(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/20120220com5.html
Farm workers started cultivating the land after the Supreme Court
issued a decision in July 2011, stating, among others, that the farm
workers must be given the option to choose between owning land or
stocks. In a decision in November 2011, the high court unanimously
ordered the distribution of more than 4,000 hectares of land to farm
worker beneficiaries but also upheld that the RCBC is a “buyer in good
faith.”
