| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
03/19/2012
If we continue to have the kind of political leaders and economic
managers that we have today, then this nation is a goner. Speaking to
ANC last week on the current Mindanao power crisis, National Economic
Development Authority (Neda) Assistant Director-General Ruperto Majuca
practically admitted government sabotage for the non-dredging of the
Agus-Pulangui hydroelectric river network despite ample warnings over
the past decade. Besides this, he adverted to the absence of political
will in making use of available power barges to get interim supply
(which this column has repeatedly called for). Most importantly, he
revealed the real agenda behind the engineered power shortage, saying,
“Mindanao must soon get used to higher prices if the people want power.”
Then, he even capped it off with an asinine “You cannot have your cake
and eat it too” remark as a veiled threat to all Filipinos — that they
should be happy to have electricity even at exorbitant prices (the
highest in all of Asia), or else live without it.
Our GNN show
over Destiny Cable and 300 other cable networks nationwide also tackled
the same topic.
But our guests were the more genuine stakeholders in
this issue, namely, Jojo Borja (stockholder of Iligan Light and Power
and an irate anti-power oligarchy crusader) and Wilson Fortaleza
(formerly with the Freedom from Debt Coalition electricity consumer
advocacy). Borja confirmed that as the power crisis continues to ravage
Mindanao’s economy, everything from Internet cafés and restaurants to
major manufacturing concerns have been forced to shut down, despite the
fact that one power barge in Davao dedicated to the Holcim cement plant,
as well as two power barges in Iloilo and one in Luzon, are merely
lying idle. Fortaleza, who just came from a National Power Corp.
(Napocor) union-sponsored visit to Agus-Pulangui, stressed that the
system could still recover its full capacity to provide all the power
Mindanao needs today — given the proper maintenance — and still at the
current level of Mindanao’s hydro power production cost below one
centavo per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Borja even adds that another
source of ready supply are the two power barges sold off by the Power
Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (Psalm) Corp. to Therma Marine
Inc. (TMI) for $30 million last 2009, which assets were priced a few
months later at $80 million in order to be used as the basis for
doubling electricity cost to consumers. The flipside, of course, is that
the 33 electric cooperatives (ECs) in Mindanao are deterred from buying
TMI-generated power, hence, the current quagmire the region is in.
But,
instead of providing real solutions, what Department of Energy (DoE)
Secretary and former Ayala and Aboitiz executive Jose Rene Almendras
wants is to issue an order that will force all Mindanao power utility
operators to purchase power from TMI even at a high cost. According to a
March 5 report in Business Mirror (“Mindanao power problem nearing
solution: DoE”), Almendras said that as “there are about 100 MW
(megawatts) of undispatched power… they are now verifying reports that
some of the electric cooperatives are hesitant to buy because (of the)
the price differential… (prompting) the DoE (to possibly) issue a
directive to compel the electric cooperatives to buy power even at a
higher rate… (because) “At the end of the day, it’s the distributor
who’s supposed to buy the necessary power to sell.’”
The
“undispatched power” mentioned, of course, refers to the TMI power
barges’ allocated capacity. As Almendras wants to force this down the
throats of Mindanao’s utilities and consumers through a DoE order, those
who fail to comply will certainly come under some pain of punishment,
such as what was mentioned by a DoE undersecretary, who said that the
Energy Department’s proposed circular “will allow the grid operator, the
National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, to cut off power to erring
utilities… (so that it would force them) to secure available power
generation in the region at a higher price.”
This contemplated
action is simple blackmail and fascism, with the DoE as the “muscle” and
Almendras as the “enforcer,” all doing the bidding of the capo di tutti
capi, the power oligarchs. All those “public” but privately-owned
officials of the DoE, form the time of Gloria Arroyo to the present
PeNoy Aquino administration, will someday face the wrath of the people
and the courts of a new government — the way Iceland’s prime minister is
now facing jail term for betraying his people in the financial and
economic crisis since 2008.
The present oligarchy-controlled
government will not always be on top and the more these oppressive
impositions are pushed down the throats of our people, the earlier the
day of reckoning shall be. The last example we cited is just a case of
the debacle from the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 that
gave way to the power sector’s massive privatization.
In 1993, the
Alcantara Group was granted and commissioned a BOT (build-
operate-and-transfer) project with Napocor’s $110-million 104 MW
diesel-fired power plant complex (designated NMPC-1 and 2).
Since
Mindanao always had surplus power, these were hardly used. Ten years
later these were turned over to Iligan City after Napocor failed to pay
municipal taxes. But the city cannot operate the plants anymore as Epira
bans government from engaging in power generation, besides the fact
that the plants were built on an alleged overpriced Alcantara property
that is now being refused for their operation.
The reason the
Mindanao ECs and handful of private utilities refuse to buy overpriced
TMI power is that this would lock them into paying for these high prices
in the next 20 years for an engineered short-term power crisis, which
the rains will resolve in a few months. The DoE and the
oligarch-conspirators want to force these high priced contracts so that
they can do the same when the Agus-Pulangui is privatized when the
public will momentarily let down its guard.
Luckily, Mindanaoans
today are not yielding. Having learned the bitter lessons from Luzon and
Visayas’ power woes, their struggle may yet inspire the rest of the
country to reverse the Epira totally and shove the pain it brought down
those greedy power oligarchs’ sorry backsides.
(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 “Mining: Bomb or Boon?;” visit
http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
(Reprinted from permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120319com5.html
