| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
02/17/2012
It is a news item that gets little
notice as it does not relate to the impeachment hearings. But if the
government and media were truly alert, they would have spotted it right
from the get-go.
The claimed “uprating” of the Agus VI
hydroelectric plant in Mindanao, to be undertaken by the Department of
Public Works and Highways (DPWH), is geared toward increasing the
facility’s “output to augment limited supply on the island.” This was
the official announcement from Josefina Patricia Asirit, undersecretary
of the Department of Energy (DoE), who said that the “uprating… needs to
be presented to the Neda (National Economic Development Authority)
Board.”
Simply put, uprating means Agus VI will soon be able to
produce 62 megawatts (MW) from its present 50. The question is: Why only
now when it could have been done much earlier?
They, of course,
allege that Mindanao is short of power today. And with the scheduled
brownouts causing massive economic displacement in the island, this has
been turned into another reason for the private sector to be given new
independent power producer (IPP) contracts that will double Mindanao’s
generation cost.
The Agus VI uprating confirms our charge these
past decades that authorities delayed rehabilitation deliberately to
create an opportunity for electricity plunder. It confirms the
conspiracy led by multilateral financial institutions in tandem with the
Philippine oligarchy and its corrupt political class.
We have
time and again seen through these conspirators’ modus operandi: Create
power shortages; announce actions (though delayed) to justify government
expenditure for “rush jobs;” then announce the privatization of a
particular facility once its rehabilitation is completed and its systems
are fully operational.
In this instance, the pressure for the
privatization of the entire Agus-Pulangui hydroelectric complex has been
on for years now. Only opposition from many crusading Mindanao power
sector NGOs, civic leaders, and political leaders, such as Rep. Rufus
Rodriguez, has stopped them so far. Sooner or later, though, the
multinationals and multilaterals will descend upon Malacañang to get
their way.
It is therefore important to keep refreshing the
historical memory of our people about the pressure exerted by, say, the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) through its dangling of a $300 million
standby loan on our politicians in 2001 to pass the Electric Power
Industry Reform Act (Epira), a law that caused, among other things, the
onerous and devastating privatization of power, the creation of the
administrative and corrupt monster that is the Energy Regulatory
Commission (ERC), as well as its Satanic offspring, the Performance
Based Regulation, which pushed the country’s power rates to become “the
highest in Asia,” if not the world.
For the swift enactment of
that law, which allegedly cost P500,000 per congressman plus millions in
electricity projects, Gloria Arroyo back then was hailed by the foreign
chambers of commerce, the Makati Business Club, and other oligarchs. It
is not surprising then that these very same people are now showing all
their love for PeNoy for providing the impeachment distraction as their
power plunder continues.
As Agus and Pulangui supply the vast
majority of hydro power in Mindanao, the same report last Monday also
stated that the DoE is similarly pushing the dredging by government of
the Lanao River that supplies water to Pulangui VI. Our question again
is: Why only now?
Mindanaoans have demanded the dredging of these
facilities years ago. But, as no action was taken, the power crisis
started allowing the DoE, Psalm (Power Sector Assets and Liabilities
Management Corp.), and the NGCP (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines)
to issue ”red alert” bulletins of power shortages to justify their call
for more privatization and new emergency projects (e.g., power plants
and transmission connections).
The caveat is, every time new
projects are approved, new capex (capital expenditure) requirements are
submitted, which are added to the power bills consumers pay for.
When
will Congress and Malacañang do something about this — only after a
genuine political revolution sweeps these corrupt ruling classes away?
On
another related note, we have this item on the “wholesale savings”
being stored with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for 4.25 percent
interest and used as a tool for managing the country’s money and
currency, called the Special Deposit Account (SDA): It has already grown
to P1.721 trillion the past month.
UP Economics professor Ben
Diokno explains: “(The high level of funds in SDAs) indicated still weak
demand for loans, suggesting lack of investment opportunities or banks
still careful in extending loans… SDAs are short-term while PPP
(Public-Private Partnership) financing requirements are extremely
long-term…”
Really? But why do I see strong demand for loans from
coconut and dairy, as well as other small manufacturing
import-substitution sectors? Ah, but these are genuine industries that
are not encouraged by the present economic planners.
Financial
forensics expert Hiro Vaswani even contends that what this fund shows is
that we are indeed a relatively rich nation. The only fly in the
ointment is that lowering the rates and releasing it could create havoc
due to the fact that we have no strong State that sets its own economic
goals by directing the huge fund for our own productive developmental
investments.
Reflecting further on Vaswani’s analysis, it dawned
on me that the PPP program is but a concession to global capital, which,
in fine, involves highly financially leveraged “rentier” projects (just
like apartments and market stalls that are built and rented out to the
public) with government guarantees that are not directly productive.
Although these may support some productivity in agriculture and
industry, the fees and rates are just too high, making such an
exploitative set-up work against productivity in the long run.
Taking
note of the impact of such high toll and harbor fees, not to mention
the high cost of energy projects being entered into, the PPP may very
well stand for “Private Plunder Projects.”
(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 “The evils of corporate mining
behemoths;” 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/20120217com6.html
