| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
04/09/2012
The religious holidays are over and we’re back to the realities of the
Filipino’s deteriorating everyday life. Very soon — that is next month —
electricity bills reflecting yet another hike in the already highest
power rate in Asia will confront each and every power consumer anew.
Meanwhile, as the Mindanao power crisis rages on despite the flurry of
PR pronouncements about official action on the matter, government still
declares that Mindanaoans must either pay up or shut up in the darkness.
One electric cooperative not standing down on the blackmail was
recently mentioned in an e-mail by our fellow power consumer
protectionist crusader, Jojo Borja, a major shareholder in Iligan Light
and Power Inc. (ILPI).
Borja relays that “According to Barangay
Captain Mateo Cortez, who is also Vice President of the Northern
Mindanao Cooperative (Normic)… (at) a public hearing that was attended
by Napocor (National Power Corp.) and NGCP (National Grid Corp. of the
Philippines)… (but which) Psalm (Power Sector Assets and Liabilities
Management Corp.) did not attend… members of the 33 Rural Cooperatives
of Mindanao… instead opted for darkness as they refused to be
blackmailed by Therma Marine Inc. (TMI) into signing very expensive
long-term Power Sales Agreements (PSA).”
However, “with the recent
‘orders’ of (Energy Secretary) Almendras that they must buy (power from
TMI)… they (have agreed) but only for one year to give Psalm enough
time to repair the four power barges (of Napocor),” adding that “If
Aboitiz will insist on a five-year take-or-pay contract… the
cooperatives would rather choose the rolling brownouts.”
“In the
case of Iligan City,” Borja says, “the ERC (Energy Regulatory
Commission) already approved the PSA between Mapalad Energy Generation
Corp. and ILPI. In spite of (his appeals) to ERC that the consumers of
ILPI own a 104-MW (power plant) and that ILPI should not buy 2 units of
7.5-MW (megawatt) diesel, inefficient, obsolete power generation plants
at P400 million, ERC railroaded the approval of an additional generation
cost of P2.23 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the next 20 years — a rate
that will increase after the first year for cost overruns (similar to
what TMI did) and every three years thereafter as the value of the
obsolete power plants will be reappraised as… allowed by the Epira
(Electric Power Industry Reform Act).”
The first part of the
e-mail is self-explanatory; but what is striking is Normic preferring
the “rolling brownouts” over paying 50 percent additional to TMI which
will provide the electricity from two power barges the Aboitiz Group
“bought” from Napocor-Psalm — the two power barges reappraised from $30
million to $80 million to hike the rate base for their electricity
supply, to allow the selling of power at P11/kWh compared to the normal
P2.60/kWh in Mindanao.
The latter part highlights Epira’s
distorted and corrupt consequences — in this case Iligan City, which
acquired the 104-MW BOT (build-operate-transfer) power plant from the
Alcantaras’ IPP (independent power producer) that was transferred back
to Napocor due to non-payment of real estate taxes. As the crisis wore
on, Iligan wanted to operate the plant. But for some unknown reason, ERC
refused to give it provisional authority and instead approved new
capacity at a higher additional cost imposed for the next 20 years.
It
must be recalled that the 2001 Epira passage was an imposition of the
(International Monetary Fund) IMF and its subalterns, the World Bank
(WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in return for approval of
stand-by and emergency loans of around $1.2 billion. Today, we find
ourselves entrapped in a vicious cycle of power distortion and
corruption created by Epira’s privatization and deregulation of power.
For
this reason, the recent IMF pronouncements on “reforms” in the
Philippines in this second decade of the 21st Century merely smack of
rank hypocrisy and deception.
Last March 20, the WB through its
country economist for the Philippines issued statements urging the
Philippines to “speed up reforms,” saying “there should be measures to
lower power rates.” Well, they certainly would never say that these
measures are now improbable because of the convoluted rules made into
law and instituted by the Epira that make government itself helpless in
the face of an escalating crisis — that is, unless the Epira is
repealed.
Let us be clear: An amendment to the Epira will just be a
delusion since it is privatization itself that is at the crux of the
unjust law.
So you may ask: Why the title for this column? The
answer will become clear once we zero in on this welcome news: “Brics
Bank to Rival World Bank and IMF and Challenge Dollar Dominance.”
Brics
(Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), in its recent meeting
in India, agreed to establish a “Brics Bank” that would fund
development projects and infrastructure in developing nations, in order
to reduce dependence on the dollar by conducting trade between the five
nations in their own currencies, thereby positioning these as
internationally-traded currencies.
With the Brics bank, the
Philippines in the future would no longer have to be dependent on the
exploitative conditionalities and policies of the IMF-WB-ADB
three-headed hydra.
Finally, the multilateral financial
institutions of the West will have competition and Third World countries
can have choices in sourcing financial support for development needs.
If only Brics were around in 2001, the Philippines may not have been entrapped in the Epira nightmare.
Naturally,
the Western press has not been happy with this development. Jeremy
Warner of London’s The Telegraph (in “Why a Brics-built bank to rival
IMF is doomed to fail”) writes: “Outside endemic corruption, uncertain
or wholly absent rule of law, and relatively low per capita income and
life expectancy, there wouldn’t appear to be much that unites this
disparate collection of nations…” Well, news flash: Such statements
reflect more the true state of Wall Street, Obama, and the Eurozone now
trapped in the death throes of their financial crisis than anything
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., on
“Fuel price crisis: Solutions” with consumer advocate Dr. Amanda Cruz
and FDC; 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/20120409com5.html
