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THE DREAMWEAVER OF BAGUIO 12 We politicize economic issues & give an economic perspective to political issues DECEMBER 16-22, 2013 • VOL.4 NO.17

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PLUNDER

By Miguel Raymundo

MERALCO delivers electricity to its over 6 million consumers at a cost of P16.58 per kwh. This makes Meralco rates in Metro Manila and near provinces the most expensive in the world. Page 2

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STANDARD & POOR’S: A POOR FORECAST 3 12/13/13 7:32 PM

COVER STORY knees.

For consumers, the most obvious impact of Epira is the escalation in their monthly electricity bills.

From 2001 to 2010, the average residential rate of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the nation’s biggest utility with almost five million customers in the metropolis, jumped by 112.5 percent.

Take-or-Pay

PLUNDER

By Miguel Raymundo

MERALCO delivers electricity to its over 6 million consumers at a cost of P16.58 per kWh. This makes Meralco rates in Metro Manila and near provinces the most expensive in the world. Preparing the market for the highestever power rate increase at P4.15 per kwh, Meralco announced that increases will be staggered over a period of three months—that will mean a total average increase of 30% in cost of use of electricity.

Consumers raised voices in anger, their cry worsened by the government admission it cannot stop the rate increase.

Industry observers claim the government is part of this grand crime against power consumers in the Philippines.

There are reasons a big crime is being committed. A look at the comparative rates will show the result of theft by big business.

On the local scene, Iligan Light and Power, Inc. (ILPI), supplier of electricity in Iligan City, sells power at P5/kwh. In Cagayan City, cost of electricity is P7.50/ kwh. These two provinces are in Mindanao and not covered by the EPIRA.

Iligan Rates

The disturbing question is why would electricity in Iligan City cost only P5/kwh and Meralco’s cost P16.58/kwh?

Nobody in the government seems to know the explanation. Logic dictates that Meralco rates should be less than P5/kwh considering it has economy of scales given over 5 million consumers.

Comparing cost of electricity sold by Meralco with cost in other countries, it is no surprise even Filipino-owned companies packed up and left for Vietnam and our neighbors. Vietnam cost is P3.16/kwh.

Hong Kong is P6/kwh. Given our cost of power five times more expensive than our neighbors, that promise of rush of foreign direct investments into our country is all a dream if not an outright lie.

Jojo Borja, owner of ILPI, find the price of Meralco power “ heartless and criminal” and says “government allowing this overprice to continue and even get worse is a reason to file a case of plunder against some government officials and big business”.

Borja will join Ray L. Junia, chair of Movement for Responsible Enterprise (MORE), Mentong Laurel and other consumer advocates in filing a plunder case this week against officials of the Department of Energy, Energy Regulatory Com-

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DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

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OpinYon

mission (ERC), owners of Meralco including Manny V. Pangilinan, and other power generation companies.

For over a decade, power companies have plundered the pockets of consumers with impunity without realizing they only helped create a revolutionary situation.

Across the country, discontent has given rise to anger as consumers suffer from the wanton abuse of power literally by those at the helm of the electricity industry.

Other than unabated outages, particularly in strife-torn Mindanao, consumers languished and burdened by endless surge of costs passed on by the suppliers despite wallowing in profits.

Inexplicably, the government is helpless, seemingly resigned to allowing free market forces to dictate the fate and fortunes of Filipino consumers.

What best illustrates that stance is in Metro Manila where the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has given Meralco the blanket authority to slap additional charges at will.

Flawed Policy

No one’s to blame, except the lawmakers themselves for passing a law, the now controversial Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), in 2001 amid widespread allegations that a whopping half a billion pesos in lobby money changed hands.

Touted as the key to overcoming the country’s power and fiscal woes prevailing then, the hastily enacted measure only led to monopoly and oligopoly, making the law as the grandmother of all scams plaguing the power sector.

Over the past years, the ill-advised law deterred the economy’s growth as investors were turned off doing business in a country with the most expensive electricity in Asia.

The passage of Epira was conditionality dictated by creditors of heavily indebted state-run National Power Corp. (NPC) in exchange for its continued access to additional loans.

Debt-Plagued

Among its largest creditors were the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and Japan Bank for International Cooperation. These creditors were worried that Napocor, given its worsening financial problems, might not be able to pay them back. The pressure from these creditors prompted lawmakers to enact the law, apparently unable to foresee the dire effects in the years ahead.

The law was supposed to provide the legal framework for the NPC’s paradigm shift anchored on the three-pronged policy dictate of largely influential foreign creditors—privatization, deregulation and liberalization.

The state-owned power firm used to own and operate generation plants and transmission facilities. It also held supply contracts with independent power producers (IPPs).

Cost Layers

Under Epira, the government formed a new entity -- the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm) to privatize the NPC’s generation and transmission assets.

Over the past years, Psalm privatized 91.7 percent of NPC’s generation assets, particularly in Luzon and Visayas, and almost two-thirds of energy outputs under IPP contracts nationwide.

Specifically, NPC’S transmission grid was privatized via a 25-year concession agreement between government and the National Grid Corp. of the Philippine in January 2009.

Despite the government’s much-ballyhooed bailout scheme for NPC, it remains neck-deep in debt, the reason why it has dragged down the power industry to its

The rates soared because, ironically, Epira allowed the continued collection of charges under the so-called purchase power adjustment (PPA), a mechanism practiced by NPC to recover costs and pay debts and still practiced by Meralco and other power providers.

It all boils down to the onerous takeor-pay contracts with the IPPs regardless of whether their power supply is used or not. For consumers, it means that they pay for electricity that they did not even use.

Under Epira, the PPA was just replaced with other anomalous means of cost recovery. One is the generation rate adjustment mechanism (Gram) allowing Meralco and other electricity firms to automatically recover every month the change in generation cost though the Automatic Adjustment of Generation Rates and Systems Loss Rates (Agra).

Consumers are also burdened by another scandalous cost layer – the Incremental Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (ICERA). Through this, hapless end-users of electricity shoulder the losses of companies arising from fluctuations in the foreign exchange.

To illustrate, if the cost of imported oil or coal used by generation companies went up because the peso-dollar exchange rate rose, the increment will be paid for by the consumers.

Another controversial entity is the socalled Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), the entity representing the IPPs with excess power capacity to which utilities resort for additional capacity.

Raking It In

That set-up, which has fueled speculations that only drove up power costs, is anomalous as consumers ultimately bear the costs of supply over which they have no control.

Here comes the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), long demonized for its dyed-in-the-wool protectionist stance at the expense of the poor consumers.

Apparently yielding to pressures from power monopolies, the ERC adopted the performance-based regulation (PBR) on the assumption that “good utility performance should lead to higher profits.”

Since using the PBR in 2009, Meralco saw its distribution charge go up by a hefty 70.5 percent, the same trend in other utilities in what could be a continuing syndicated scheme to defraud the consumers of their hard-earned money.

As the biggest player in the profithungry power industry, Meralco – now controlled by the group of telecom tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan -- has been raking it in in the midst of poverty.

Defining Aquino’s Presidency

Buoyed by a long trail of revenue growth – thanks to Epira – Meralco is targeting to pocket close to a whopping P20 billion in after-tax profit this year as consumers have no choice but to pay up their electricity bills.

Every now and then, not a few pushed proposals—from the sublime to the ridiculous—to amend or scrap the Epira, the scourge of the economy, as the power crisis escalates beyond control.

The bottomline: suspicion of conspiracy among power firms bordering on economic sabotage in the face of the government’s devil-may-care condescending attitude.

ERC’s silence on its approval of Meralco’s historic-high new round of rate increase is deafening, giving credence to persistent rumors that its officials are in the pockets of Meralco and other utilities.

Businessmen, both local and foreign, have warned that unless mitigated, the power crisis will be more devastating to the economy than the combined effects of the earthquake in Bohol and the storm surge in Central Visayas region.

Certainly, the power crisis is another dimension to President Aquino’s crisisplagued government.

WE TAKE A STAND

12/13/13 7:32 PM

Nation Poor Forecast

By Miguel Raymundo

CAN truth be relative and objectivity subjective at the same time?

It appears this can happen should we believe opposing perceptions on the state of Philippine economy.

Standard & Poor’s, a credit rating company that has recently been accused of doubtful reviews being reportedly commissioned by clients to read the investment future a country, recently said the Philippines remains a “good story” in the years to come.

Meaning investors are safe with their money in the country.

On the other hand, the local economic observers say investors will start packing up to leave for safer havens. Cited as reasons: the country has the most expensive electricity in the whole world; security concerns

will double as crime rate will pick up caused by a population made poorer by rising cost of living and declining source of income; political instability driven by an absent governance; unrealistic budget targets that cannot be achieved because of the ripple effect of doubling the cost of living and increasing corruption.

S &P says the PH gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 7% this year. It cut 0.1% from its previous forecast owing to the effects of natural calamities.

The government is planning for a 6.5 to 7.5% economic expansion next year, 2014. S&P says, the economy will grow up to 6% only, showing a slowdown from this year’s growth.

The rating company’s economist, Paul Gruenwald, said it’s the stable macroeconomic fundamentals that anchor this growth.

He explained further that a

strong external position, a domestically driven growth, making it less exposed to global risks.

Indeed this reading of the reason of high growth is so inviting to investors. This is a perfect formula to make money from a strong domestic market.

Gruenwald could be stretching too far his imagination here.

It is either he is getting wrong inputs or he does not care at all if investors will lose their pants here.

Numbers from the National Statistical Coordination Board say that the number of poor Filipino families grew to 4.2 million in 2012 from 3.8 million in 2006. This means one of every five families in the Philippines is poor. If you translate this to individuals, this means 20Million Filipinos are poor.

The worse is these figures were on a year prior to the series of natural and manmade calami-

ties, including the increase in cost of power, fuel, and everything else. The same report by NSCB says that the poverty rate will increase by over one percentage point in 2013.

The agriculture sector will suffer a slump with farms in the Visayas completely destroyed by super typhoon Yolanda. There will be telling effect on cost of food in the country in the next few months. Buying capacity of families in the Visayas will pull down local economic activity.

Even as the effects of ST Yolanda still have to be felt by the national economy, the power suppliers announced electricity price increase that will bring up the cost of power by between 50 and 60 percent of current billing.

Accountants estimate that a family that pays P7,000.00 for electricity will pay now P11,000.00 a month. Cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has

gone up from P650 to P900.00.

Cost of fuel has also gone up.

This is one manmade catastrophe equal to the Yolanda fury if not worse that will kill the Filipino people. Labor is now demanding for increase in wages.

Big business will move out of the country like one electronic company that employed over ten thousand workers that moved out to Vietnam. Small business will be wiped out. Tens if not hundreds of thousands will be out of work.

The domestic market is killed even when the OFW remittances keep coming. The big business will just suck away these dollars from the national economy.

The P4.15 per/kwh increase in electricity means Meralco and power suppliers will collect over PhP248 billion more from consumers. These are billions of pesos lost from the national economy that had these been allowed to circulate instead of turning as profits to greedy businessmen would create thousands of work and keep enterprise active.

S&P forecast could be true and good for the big investors now sucking dry our economy.

In fact their forecast is way off the mark and absolutely understated. The big money players here take all the cake, leaving nothing for the people. Notice the Philippines has the biggest numbers of billionaires in our part of the world according to the latest Forbes list.

The observations of local economists cannot be farther from the truth. They are on ground and know the realities of an oligarchy biased economy.

The Visayas Tragedy

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NOUGH time has elapsed so that perhaps we can look at all that happened and the terrible consequences from a less emotional perspective. This does not mean that our heart is not broken by the loss of lives, young and old and the virtually total devastation of structures, big and small that took place. I suppose it will still take some time to determine just how bad it was. To some, the hurts may never heal. More importantly, we must also consider the emotionally traumatic effects of this disaster and offer some help. It will take more than just taking some pills!

Administratively, there is so much to learn. I hope it will not be just fi nger pointing and the wringing of hands. We do have a disaster coordinating Committee but it is probably time to scale up the degree of preparedness, both in terms of food and water reserves, the logistics of moving them from one place to the other and enough transport resources that can be mobilized at a moment’s notice to move relief goods by land, air or sea and the reserve personnel with which to do the task. These must all be geographically distributed based on an assessment of geological conditions prevailing and weather disturbance patterns.

Whoever is appointed to be

head honcho, and one should be, to head the overall relief operation committee, must be a professional possessed of the managerial skills, intelligence, quick thinking and experience to undertake the operation and can mobilize both people and equipment, including pre-identified rolling, flying and water going equipment, from rafts to larger naval vessels., including well trained manning crews.

This disaster relief organization must have the authority to trump a chain of command of supporting agencies and forces because time will always be the essence of such operations and, of course, the contingent funds that may be needed. This really is where the discretionary pork of the President should go!

Moreover, there has to be very close coordination between PAGASA and the Disaster Relief Agency so that more appropriate preparedness measures can be taken when needed. The report that the weather agency was afraid to let the appropriate estimate of potential of the incoming typhoon was a rather sad commentary, just as dismissing the police official who came out with an estimate of 10,000 possible deaths was an over-reaction from someone who should be staying cool. I wonder if he will ever learn Let us see if there any real steps taken to create the nation’s ability to respond to what may

RAY OF HOPE Ramon Orosa well be more super typhoons, if not earthquakes. It has been reported that if an earthquake of 8.5-9.0 intensity strikes Metro Manila, as many as 15,000 people may die. I think it is on the lower end of the estimate. Are the warehouses of relief goods insulated from such intense earthquakes? How about the equipment and search equipment needed? Do we have canine search teams that can go through rubble? How about enough drills and other digging equipment? I would rather put the money there than in the President’s DAP funds because a life is more important than his political games.

We must have also well equipped portable field hospitals that can be readily transported where needed, manned by members of our emergency medical corps including nurses of varying skills. I am not longing for a floating hospital ship like the one China sent. It will probably take us a century to be

able to afford something like that. We still have to overcome our bad reputation for maintenance because corruption has so tainted that part of the military, well not just them but many other agencies, cities and provinces.

We must also establish how the Relief agency can call on the private sector when needed if the disaster is beyond the capability of the Relief Agencies. Doctors, surgeons, dentists, nurses, engineers, electricians, welders, mechanics, administrators, etc. etc.

This should include elements of the Chaplaincy Corps of the military and their links to private spiritual workers to be able to comfort and minister to those affected and who can also help in goods distribution.

I was deeply disturbed by a report that when people were looking for shelter in Tacloban, one supposedly Christian sect, closed their church doors and would not admit anyone who was not a member, claiming that only they would be saved.

The government has the right to commander private, even religious structures in the face of disasters for the common good.

It is the height of religious bigotry for any one group to claim exclusivity when the public is suffering so much and need shelter badly. I hope this was an isolated incident.

However one might look at Yolanda, the expectation is that

WE TAKE A STAND

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violent weather, storms, earthquakes will likely multiply in the days ahead. The issue is how to privately prepare in order not to be killed or so seriously damaged. What also is government prepared to do for those who live in vulnerable areas.

The cost of retrofitting or relocation will be quite enormous.

And now that we are building so many high rises, our local authorities should be very strict and require better structural engineering standards from the builders and developers. What I notice is that no builder reveals what standards have been followed in what they have constructed. Only nice pictures, a floor plan and interior designs.

Even if they comply with building standards, the question is whether it is time to raise them so that the damage and loss of lives can be minimized. I have raised this issue with some construction people and they all just look somewhat sheepish and simply say we complied with the standards prevailing. If you are contemplating buying a condominium, try asking some of these relevant questions and experience for yourself how you will be answered. You are probably talking to someone who does not know what psi means!

I guess one can go on and on while the government and the LGUs stick their heads in the sand! Well it is a long standing habit!

OpinYon

DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

3 12/13/13 7:32 PM

OPINION

From the Chairman

By Raymund L. Junia

Controlled Media

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Costly Misadventures BRACE yourselves for the PhP3.44 per kilowatt hour increase. This plus the current rate of PhP5.66 equals PhP9.10 for generation cost alone.

To estimate your total bill—whatever you are paying now (depends on the class of consumer)—just add an increase of PhP4.15 to cover transmission, VAT and other taxes.

Not a rosy picture, eh?

A confluence of events is blamed for the upcoming increase. But Juan dela Cruz thinks he is being made to pay for all the damage caused by Yolanda to the electricity infrastructure in the Visayas. Government says it has to do with the Malampaya shutdown “for regular maintenance”. This means about 40 percent of Meralco’s contracted supply is now using alternative fuel that costs more.

The PhP9.10 rate increase exceeds the previous high of PhP6.77 per kwh set in April 2010 and the PhP6.74 increase effected in August last year. Now amount of explanation will cushion the effects of a rate hike of such magnitude.

Our system of determining power rates is so complicated it befuddles even the so-called experts. Again, Juan dela Cruz smells something fishy here. The more confusing it is, the better for Meralco to get away with highway robbery.

Can we ever bring down power rates to a level that is comparable and competitive with that of other countries in our region? No, not likely.

Experts hired by Meralco say there is absolutely nothing wrong with the company’s rates. Of course, this expert is gonna call it in favor of his employer. The expert also said it has to do with our geography and that we should not compare our local rates with that of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore—whose governments subsidize power rates.

We started having serious problems with our power rates at the tail-end of the FVR presidency. The wise guys in Napocor back then overbought power generating capacity. Government abused the authority Congress gave FVR to address the power shortage which were felt during the end of the Cory Aquino presidency.

The public paid for the misadventures of Napocor and the IPP program. Gloria Macapagal’s decision to defer rate hikes during her watch did not help either as this only increased the burden the National Treasury had to bear. We are still paying for these misadventures under the “Universal Charges” in our monthly bill.

The picture looks grim. Walang liwanag ang bukas.

HERMAN TIU-LAUREL Publisher TONYPET J. ROSALES Managing Editor

OpinYon is published by Digitek Publishing House, Inc., with editorial and business offices at No. 10 Pacita Avenue, Pacita Complex I, San Pedro, Laguna.

TELEPHONE NUMBER

San Pedro: 214-0766 Email: opinyon.2010@ gmail.com website: www.opinyon.com.ph ISSN 2094-7372

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DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

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DAVE DIWA Opinion Editor FREDERICK FABIAN Social Media Director CARLOS RAJAMIRA Creative Director JOJO VALENCIA Layout Artist Editorial Consultants DIEGO CAGAHASTIAN LINGGOY ALCUAZ ERICK SAN JUAN RODRIGO CORNEJO RAY L. JUNIA Board Chairman & President ATTY. SALVADOR S. PANELO Ombudsman ATTY. RICKY RIBO, Legal counsel JOACHIM JOSHUA P. MEDROSO V.P. Business Development

OpinYon

MAR Roxas, the head of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), and heir to the throne of President Benigno S. Aquino III is currently the most hated person in national media, more so in social media.

Malacanang propaganda, controlled and managed by the camp of Mar Roxas and the Liberal Party, lost the media war. Proof to this is the resignation of Sec. Ricky Carandang, on top of operations in the social media side.

There was no way Roxas and company could have won the war to capture public trust on the typhoon Yolanda issue against the propaganda machineries of Binay, Romualdez, the other camp inside Malacanang and more importantly the angered people of Leyte, Samar and the rest of the Visayas.

Aside from a network of groups, a mix between paid hacks and the angered Warays, video cuts of his meetings with local officials on the ground proved his arrogance and insensitivity in power.

In one report of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

by Marlon Ramos, Roxas was quoted to have said fi nding survivors under the rubble is not priority even when foreign aid workers were rushing to clear areas to save more lives.

That Roxas is in deep problem and will most likely loss his chance to become President is his making. He is just being natural and honest to everyone on his true character. That character is typi-

cal of children born to great wealth. Did PNoy not walk out in a meeting with businessmen in Leyte days after Yolanda hit the country?

There is, however, another reason Roxas is very hot in both the mainstream and alternative media.

This is deliberate. This is entertainment. This is distraction.

The more important issue is not Mar Roxas and his arrogance. The most important issue is our national economy, threatened by record increases in cost of electricity.

At the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) hearing on this latest and record increase in power cost, Jojo Borja stood up to seek explanation on why the government is allowing Meralco to charge outrageous rates of almost P20/kwh when in Iligan City, electricity costs only P5/kwh?

After the hearing, Borja was swamped by local press to get his comments over the non-answer by the ERC to his question. Our monitoring of news reports in that day and days after, not a whimper or a line on his question was raised. Yet that was the most important question in the day.

Borja came to our editorial meeting last week hoping that he will get one media outfit to ask the question. He came to fi nd one media outfit that is not controlled by big business in the power sector.

Borja got more than what he was looking for.

We agreed to join forces and push government and big business to answer this question. We will do this at the Office of the Ombudsman. We are fi ling a plunder case this week.

People Must Reverse Epira, WESM

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LECTRICITY companies used to appeal desperately to government for rate increases. The public would force the government to give them a hard time before granting any request.

Highlighting the reverse situation today, 12 years after the passage of the EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act), last week the House Speaker, Feliciano Belmonte, “appealed to Meralco to ‘rollback’ its P 4.16/kWh hike after its implementation in March.”

Why appeal to a business sector when government represents the people as the sovereign will. What BS is a “rollback… after its implementation”? Only a forked tongue speaks in such oxymoronic terms.

Time is Ripe

The House chief “supported calls to ‘revisit’ the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), saying that the time is ripe to repeal the law, following the skyrocketing power rates”. Is Belmonte now ready to knell and say his mea culpas for being the bribery-in-chief that distributed PhP500,000 per congressman in 2001 to pass the EPIRA into law?

But the latest P 4.15/kwh hour power price hike is only a third of the real problem. The PBR (Performance Based Rate) system of setting rates if based on as asset base that is overprice by up to 500% on overpriced power transformers of Meralco and the rest, as well as 900% overprices of electric poles.

The late Mang Naro Lualhati (passed away at 89 early this month,) who helped win the P 30-B Meralco refund for all of us, proved that the Meralco’s distribution charge should only be P 0.91/kwh instead of the P 1.69/kwh which constitutes 90% overcharging.

To his last days Lualhati asked his son to keep the fight against the EPIRA going. The latest hike of P 4.16/kwh has made the Philippines the proud owner of the No. 1 spot as the highest power cost country in the World, but even before this the Philippines was already No. 1 in its own region as the “highest power cost in Asia” since the passage of the EPIRA in 2001.

PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE Mentong Laurel Today Hong Kong’ power is P 6.00/kWh and in Southern California it is P 7.17/kWh. Picking up from Vietnam’s touoitnews.vn 2013 report, in Vietnam its VND 1,509/KWh (VND21,105.00 to 1 Dlr) or $ 0.072/kWh equivalent to P 3.168/kWh and 1/5 of Manila’s around P 16.50/kWh. Is it a wonder then that the newly-registered and added investment from foreign businesses (FDI) to Vietnam in the year to October topped a record US$19.23 billion, while the Philippines that supposedly outdid Vietnam in GDP recorded only $3.108 billion in FDI by September 2013? Vietnam get six times the FDI the Philippines gets and the equivalent number of jobs generated for FDIs.

Root of Crisis

The Epira is at the root of the Philippine power price crisis.

Among its root branches that allows the worse manipulation of prices is the WESM (Wholesale Electricity Sport Market) established by the Epira, Chapter II, Sec. 30, with a PEMC (Philippine Electricity Market Corporation) and a board which makes profit and salaries inputted in our electricity prices, consisting of market participants (i.e. the private power companies), buying and selling their power production based on demand they set. It’s supposed to ensure the profitability of the power generation “market players” even if it amounts to price gouging. PEMC charges us P1Billion every year.

In February 2010 the WESM was ordered investigated by the late energy secretary Angelo Reyes for “alleged price manipulations”. The body to investigate was the PEMC, again an oxymo-

ronic situation because the two are always in cahoots. WESM power generation prices in February of that year in the Bicol Region went as high as P 68/kWh in the spot market. As is always the case with investigations in the power sector, three years passed and nothing came of it. This was a repeat of other scandal in 2006 and 2009, the latter when spot market prices reached P 9/kWh generated power.

The best way for the reader to see the criminal manipulation in the WESM is to see the power price of Iligan City.

Iligan City with ILPI (Iligan Light and Power Inc.) consistently had the lowest power rate in the country. Mindanao was exempted from Epira until recently and still has no “spot market” like WESM, but Iligan was always still lower at P 5/kWh even against Cagayan de Oro or Davao that ranged from P 7.50 to P 10/kWh. It was not only because of Maria Cristina and the Agus-Pulangi hydro. ILPI with only 60,000 consumer base could offer such low price while Meralco with six m1illion customers providing gigantic economies of scale enforces a power price of P 12/ kWh (P 16.50/kWh with the new increase).

WESM for Mindanao

The Aquino government is trying to set up a WESM for Mindanao now, with disaster to follow.

The draft of the Epira was written with the bias for privatization, but even the hacks who wrote it conceded protection for the public and included in Section 23 the obligation of distribution utilities such as Meralco “to supply electricity in the least cost manner to its captive market...” This has never happened because privatization itself which places the profit motive as paramount meant public interest would be relegated to low priority.

Which is exactly what happened, and an oligopoly developed, market collusion and manipulation followed. It all already happened in the U.S. in the Enron scandal in 2001 that bankrupted the State of California, but they still implemented it here.

Turn to page 8

WE TAKE A STAND

12/13/13 7:33 PM

Opinion

The Viewpoints and outlook of the well-informed

War by the Chosen Few

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OR over two weeks now, the issue on China’s ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) is still very much the hot topic among analysts and observers of current events. Even to some netizens, various comments and sometimes harsh ones are still the trend.

There is nothing new about establishing an ADIZ for security reasons among countries especially the threatened ones under tensions created by disputes over territories. This time around the China-Japan dispute over tiny islands has created another chapter of tension especially that the mighty Uncle Sam is supporting Japan, its ally in the region.

But as an observer of events as they unfold, there could be other reasons why US and its allies (or even on the part of China) are making such a huge deal about this ‘animal’ called ADIZ. From the point of view of some analysts, like Ric Saludo of Manila Times, in his article ‘Here we go again: China’s new gambit’, he wrote that one factor

(among three factors) that some “analysts for the ADIZ move is the need for the new administration of President Xi and Prime Minister Li Keqiang to consolidate power and push sweeping economic reforms, which will inevitably generate opposition from powerful vested interests in the bureaucracy, local governments, and business groups.

As with any external challenge, harnessing the armed forces to assert territorial claims against foreign nation’s lines up both the people and the military behind the government.”

In the midst of the availability of information on the internet via the social media networks, and by fearless bloggers, restiveness within China cannot be hidden to the rest of the world.

As reported by Willy Lam (Xi’s power grab dwarfs market reforms) he pointed out that the “recent Third Plenary Session of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee was expected to unveil major initiatives in economic liberalization. What has struck Chinese and foreign observers most

WHISTLE BLOWER Erick San Juan is the weight that the leadership has given to enhancing state security, particularly centralizing powers in the top echelon of the party-state apparatus.

There are also doubts about whether Xi’s insistence on party leadership of economic policy would contradict the pride of place that Li seems to be giving to market forces. The plenum communique and resolution put a lot of emphasis on the fact that “comprehensively deepening reform must require strengthening and improving party leadership, and fully developing the core leadership function of the party in taking charge of the whole situation while coordinating [the needs] of different sectors”.

The documents also called upon “party committees of all levels to earnestly fulfill the leadership responsibility over reform”.

In the eyes of Chen Ziming, a famed theorist of reform, the much-anticipated Third Plenum has turned out to be more a question of power than of reform.

“With Xi Jinping becoming the head of the two new committees [set up at the plenum], he has tightened his stranglehold on the reins of power,” Chen said. “We still do not know enough of Xi to tell what he is about to do. He can go down the road of [the reformist former Taiwan president] Chiang Ching-chuo or he could become another [Cambodian dictator] Pol Pot.” The tortuous history of China’s reforms seem to show that the quasi-superpower has yet to undergo tougher tests before it can hit upon a formula that will satisfy both the rulers’ urge to control and the people’s desire to liberate their production forces.

The reforms that has to be implemented by the present Chinese leadership will undergo another phase in the lives of over a bil-

lion Chinese citizenry. This may take a long while. For the time being Pres. Xi has to confront issues confronting its almost equal, Uncle Sam through its alliesJapan and South Korea when it comes to the disputed area in the East China Sea. But beyond this, there are also economic issues that has to be resolved between Washington and Beijing soon.

The other side of the truth is out. According to Yu Hua (International New York Times, Dec.3,2013) in his latest article, “The Hijacking of Chinese Patriotism”, Yu believed that a ‘New China’ is in the offi ng. Just like China’s brewing war on Japan.

He said that this fight has double meaning. “If we win , we get Diaoyu Island. If we lose, we get a ‘New China’. Meaning China which communist party is no longer the dominant power.

See how history is repeated by the ‘super elites’ without the complete knowledge of their leaders. Wars are all crisis by design to achieve their full control of the global governance. With the playing field controlled by a chosen few.

Distrust

D

ISTRUST is quite a bane of life—the suspicion that your spouse or best friend has betrayed you, that a motorcyclist riding in tandem with a companion is up to no good as you’re crossing a street, that the check your buyer has drawn will bounce, that cops flagging you down on a city street in broad daylight are hijackers or muggers, or that you voted for solons only to have them steal your money and dreams.

Should we migrate? A number have done that amid our country’s deteriorating state of eco-socio-political blight. I choose to remain, along with countless hardy fellow citizens, to help restore sense in our only land by banding together to secure it against external aggression, against common criminals, communist rebels and Muslim secessionists, and against the onslaught of corrupt government people and their cohorts from the public and private sectors.

If you, dear Reader, are a housewife doing some Christmas shopping with your bag fi rmly pressed against your chest, and you hear footsteps stopping whenever you stop, and are worried your house may have been broken into by robbers who have hogtied your daughter and two maids, you are a certified paranoid in the land declared “free” over twenty five years ago by Corazon C. Aquino. OMG, isn’t there anyone we can trust anymore?!

China and US: “Let us trust each other.”

Sounds great, and here’s hoping the mutual spirit holds.

The escalating tensions between today’s two strongest economies in the world, along with their respective Asian al-

lies locked in territorial disputes, are so volatile that a flareup of armed hostilities, triggered by a distrust-based event, may be what the clairvoyant John the Baptist saw over 2000 years ago: an urgency to “repent because the end (was) near.”

Personally, I believe that the “end of times” is within our lifetime, the baptizer’s miscalculation notwithstanding. Come to think of it, it was not necessarily a miscalculation if, as mystics divine, man’s one year is equal to God’s one second.

I therefore refuse to ponder when the world goes poof.

Besides, the Bible assures that “even the Son will not know the hour.” It comforts me to try to be spiritually ready at all times, and to pattern my acts and thoughts in accord with His will that His children reach out to one another to give peace a chance, like what has just been shown between China and America.

As if on cue, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Ma Keqing and US Vice President Joe Biden gave separate statements underscoring the imperative for “mutual trust and understanding” between their two countries and among their respective allies in the Asian region. With tactfully crafted words, Ma seemed to wax congenial as she delved in centuries-old cultural relations between the Chinese and Filipino peoples, while our President’s reaction, as articulated by DFA officials, was one of concern that the Chinese air defense zone covering East China Sea would also be set up in West Philippine Sea, as if it were not designed to control naval and commercial navigation and all its the natural resources.

On his end while in Beijing, Biden praised Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “candid and

MUSINGS Ronald Roy constructive person, two qualities that are needed in a relationship of trust.” Biden further said, “The world is not tranquil xxx Candor generates trust.

Trust is the basis on which real change, constructive change, is made.” Biden’s words pacify, reassure and inspire. May they ring in the hearts of all persons of ill will.

Mar Roxas, our next president?!

Will somebody please pinch me awake?! This is a nightmare!! Is DILG Secretary Mar Roxas, hubby of ABS-CBN’s Radio-TV anchor Corina Sanchez—she who once called VP Jojo Binay, UNA’s 2016 candidate for president, “maitim na maligno”, or black evil spirit, and just last month insulted CNN’s internationally respected Anderson Cooper, who had flown in not only to cover “Yolanda’s” holocaust, but also to be a good Samaritan to the victims—our next president?!

Mr. Roxas, will you and your wife be our country’s First Couple?! The idea is an outrage because you are a disgrace to both your country and family. I was 11 in 1946 when, through my father, I met your tall and stately namesake and grandfather, who smilingly greeted me with a gentle tap on my shoulder.

Then at 17, I met your dad, Gerry, whom I once amused with trick shots on the “White

Mar Roxas House’s” pool table with his father-in-law, Don Amado Araneta, watching. Your mother Judy, your uncle Nene, my sister Vilma and I go back to grade-school days. In fact, Judy stood as a principal sponsor at the wedding of my son Judd.

Your closest kin like Tony Gat, Marlyn, Pancho and Bernadette are like family to me—and I love them all.

Sorry, but I have yet to see the much-ballyhooed presidential timber in you! You see, I happen to believe the “side” of Tacloban City UNA Mayor Alfredo Romualdez in the distasteful controversy that exposes you as a tradpol of the lowest form.

Decency requires you to do two things, namely,1) APOLOGIZE to all Filipinos, Tacloba-

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nons in particular, for your gross incompetence and harmful bias—Romualdez is a relation of Imelda Marcos, ergo, the Aquino government refused to help him assist his ravaged city and constituents—that led to chaotic looting conditions after the city’s Chief of Police was sacked for being perceived as a “Romualdez man”, to the city’s receiving help at a pace slowest among all the stricken areas, and ultimately to the otherwise unnecessary rise of the mortality rate among the afflicted Taclobanons; and 2) RESIGN pronto !

Your consenting boss should likewise RESIGN! (http://musingsbyroy.wordpress. com | 09186449517 | @ronald8roy | #musingsbyroy)

OpinYon

DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

5 12/13/13 7:33 PM

Environment The Big (Woman’s) Fight

C

AN you fight the Big C with a big heart? My sister-in-law acts like it. Last week, she enplaned from the USA to take a recess of sorts from battling cancer.

She has a tumor in her brain and there are cancer growths in her lungs, bones, and other organs.

Coming Home

She has gone bald due to radiation therapy. Sometimes she is so withered she can’t even carry her bag. Medical friends in the USA are so sure that she is so frail that she won’t survive aggressive chemotherapy, another medical option.

They have tearfully advised us to take her home, where she wished to “see beaches” and “live in Tagaytay”.

But upon arrival at their ancestral home in Project 8 Quezon City, she promptly unpacked her bags and Balikbayan box to sort out her pasalubong. Then, she drove out her van to shop at S&R, dumped all the groceries back in the house, and went to the bagsakan in Balintawak to buy sacks of dalanghita, bulig of bananas, fish and meat, and more fruits.

Gina is just being her usual kinetic self. “Hoy, hindi ako inutil (I am not useless)!”, she shoots back at those who advise her to take it easy and rest. Friends are acting more morose than the supposedly very sick one.

She has worked in the USA since 1980 and only came home to retire in the Philippines about three years ago. She goes back to the America now and to earn a few more bucks.

She works as operating room nurse at the state-of-the-art University of Michigan (U of M) hospital, and lives like a journey woman. Her only daughter has settled in California while her only son studies in the Philippines.

She is known for her spunk and sharpness and is a favorite workhorse of heart surgeons, handing the correct instruments even before the operating doctor asks for them.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Back in 1998, Gina found tiny, almost imperceptible, granules in her breasts and, like Angelina Jolie, decided to have complete mastectomy. The lessons were very clear. My wife Guia and my sister-in-law’s mother also had breast cancer.

I was close to my mother-inlaw, Luz, who also had radical

People Must...

From page 4

Last December 9 Senator Antonio Trillanes IV fi led Senate Resolution 411 seeking an investigation into power rate hike by the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), including the Epira. That’s a step in the right direction. Trillanes should be ready for the power oligarchs’ gatekeeper always at the energy committee of the Senate, right now it’s still Serg Osmeña who’s sure to run interference on any real investigation while deliberately diverting the issue such a

8

DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

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MyPAD Boboy Yonzon mastectomy in Michigan. She was an art teacher at the Philippine Normal University her whole career.

When she retired, she decided to realize her American dream and lived with Gina for a while. Mama Luz endured severe winter in Midwest and infl icted her grandchildren with her Bulakena English.

It was in the USA where she learned, at a late age, that she had breast cancer. When she came home to recuperate after her operation, the fi rst thing that she exclaimed to me was “Boboy, ‘ala na ‘kong suso!”

My similarly affl icted sister-in-law, on the other hand, thought of having fun and h ad her boobs reconstructed from cup A to cup C. She had to adjust to guys looking “strangely” at her, though. But she joked that her nipples were reconstructed from anus skin.

She is a fi rm believer in Western medicine and the Catholic God, and says bah to what we now term as alternative, sometimes integrative, medicine.

Even if Western medicine failed to save their mother; she went away peacefully one Mother’s Day.

Big C in Their Lives

Cancer is interwoven in their lives. My mother-in-law’s half sister, who also lived with them in Project 8, also died of breast cancer. “Gusto ko pa mabuhay”, were her last words.

But beat breast cancer my sister-in-law did. She continued to live they way she did in the USA, driving her car, even if it wasn’t a Porsche, at 70 to 80 mph, sometimes doing her face while on the wheel. Consuming patis by the ounces and cigarettes by packs.

In 2006, or seven years after she knew she had breast cancer, she was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Gina dug down for another battle, and announced to everybody that she was not going to die as yet. She took everything that U of M could give her, even newly developed drugs, until she looked emaciated.

We would receive call from

proposing to use the Malamapaya funds to subsidize the rate hike – which will be unlawful and criminally subsidizing the price gouging profits of his in-laws and others in the power generation and distribution businesses.

The power industry of any country is a central pillar of its economy and society. In the Philippines it is an P 850-billion sector that yields unimaginable wealth for private hands that control it today allowing them, the like of Manny Pangilinan, the Lopezes, Camposes, Aboitizes, Alcantaras et al to accumulate the wealth of the

OpinYon

friends in tears pronouncing her impending requiem. Almost nobody survives cancer attacks on the lymph nodes.

But she bounced back and went on like she just had a tooth fi lling. She packed her bags and came home three years ago with her dog and had their house in Project 8 remodeled and, in the process, expending her retirement pay.

She has always been that way, living for the day. By 2012, she was considered a cancer survivor.

They Come in Threes?

In the middle of this year, however, while contractual working in the US, she was having memory lapses. Upon examination in U of M, it was revealed that cancer was all over her body.

Then the Pinoy connection, our race’s redeeming quality, kicked in. Gina’s daughter flew in, as well as friends from the East Coast. A technically blind friend flew from San Francisco to give her company while she was having medical procedures.

My wife booked a fl ight with a stopover at Los Angeles. Another friend volunteered to accompany her on the plane from there. My own sister booked a hotel near the airport for Gina to able to see other kababata perhaps, just perhaps, for a fi nal time.

Friends from all over California took leave from their work and converged in one hotel to have a pajama party. They took a pact not to cry in front of the sick. As a result, the bathroom became fi lled with wet tissues.

Today, Gina sees doctors at the Philippine General Hospital. Together with an uncle, their mom’s half brother, who has also been diagnosed with lymphoma.

He could hardly walk and his face has been disfigured by tumorous lumps.

What is it with that house and that neighborhood? A number of their playmates have died of cancer at an earlier age. It must be the asbestos roofi ng that was used for the hundreds of houses in Project 8.

Asbestos is a mineral that has sturdy physical properties and is a preferred construction or machinery material. Only, it is said to be carcinogenic.

Nobody is really looking back. Certainly not Gina or her siblings and friends. There are trips to make to Pagudpud, to Boracay, and even just to Divisoria. My wife and her sister Gina are types who seize the day. Now more so, with so much urgency.

people of up to hundreds of billions in their private hands to “invest” in other countries and bring it out of the reach of Philippine laws. Traditional business ethics do not apply as these oligarchs are allowed by law to charge everything to consumers, including income taxes and losses from natural calamities (like Sy charging P 2-Billion for Yolanda damage to NGCP).

Suspended

Traditional business ethics have been suspended in this era of Globalization. Superpower U.S.A. pushed its trans-national

Black Sand Mining

By Ray L. Junia

BLACK sand mining is not allowed and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has not issued anyone a permit to mine. You see anyone in the black sand mining, he is surely doing a crime.

Black sand mining, however, is a billion peso industry that one town alone in Cagayan earned PhP139 million, this money going to the coffers of the government.

How these mining operators get away with this racket is not secret to the government, including the people inside the Mines and Geoscience Bureau (MGB) of the DENR. Top officials of the DENR know this is happening but appear helpless in putting to stop this racket that has deprived the government of billions of pesos in revenues and shares.

Illegal Act

Reports say that black sand mining operations are deceptively given dredging permits by local government units. These dredging permits do not only cover an illegal act but, worse, exempt holders from paying taxes.

So where do the revenues go if not to the government? Your guess is as good as mine. Income from black sand mining goes to the pockets of very corrupt local officials. And they run to billions of pesos.

“Under EO 79, the local government units are barred from issuing mining permits, which is sole power of the MGB; and before awarding a mining contract, the LGU should create fi rst a Minahan ng Bayan pursuant to RA No. 7076,” said Romualdo D. Aguilos of the Mineral Economics Information and Publication Division of the MGB. Local government units, however, issue local mining permits for black sand mining even if they are prohibited by EO79 and RA 7076, Aguilos added.

Cagayan

Black sand mining is most rampant in the north of Luzon like in Cagayan. There are 10 reported black sand mining operations in this province alone.

In an Agence France-Presse photo in May, this year, “Fr.

fi nancial, banking and investment companies to create a monopoly finance capitalism hegemon, and in the Philippine built up corporatefeudalism around a dozen local oligarchic families to plunder the country’s wealth without pesky “constitutions” and “democracy” interfering with exploitation of the nation’s wealth. We must learn thus, that privatization is not just a consumer issue but a national, socio-political issue needing the collective action of the people to restore their economic rights as well a political power to ensure social and economic justice for them-

Sammy Rosimo shows an area where black sand miners have done their worst in Caoayan, Ilocos Sur.” This is also rampant in Leyte where this extraction of magnetite iron in shorelines and from sea floor begun some forty years ago.

I was in my early years in college at the Divine Word University in Tacloban City when I noticed payloaders digging the shoreline of our barrio, San Roque, in Tolosa in Leyte. Then I learned that a mining company has started operations in our area. The mining company, Inco Mining, was extracting magnetite sand from our shores.

Farmers were cajoled to give up their farms in exchange of cash and promised employment.

Their farms would be dug up to take out the magnetite sand and rendered useless for farming for decades. Many families suffered, swindled with promises of good returns in exchange for the future of their farms.

Discovered to be organizing farmers against Income Mines, I was warned that behind the mining operators were big names in the national political scene then.

It would be unhealthy for me to fight anyway the farmers and the government agreed to give up the land.

The same is the situation today. There are reports that this business has claimed lives by those who oppose it and even among players in the business.

Business competition is tough that lives get lost in the way.

Black sand mining has resurfaced in Leyte. This time this is done also offshore and surely in the guise of dredging the Pacific Ocean. Leyte faces the Pacific Ocean.

Political Warlord

The same report claims that a political warlord from the north of Luzon has descended into Leyte to talk to mayors to get the illegal mining back. And expectedly, the black sand mining was back in Leyte in no time.

For over forty years, this illegal business has flourished and made many of our local officials and warlords millionaires several times over. The government continues to be helpless according to a top official of the MGB.

selves and their posterity.

The people can begin with reversing the Epira and the privatization of the electricity sector, then reversing the “oil deregulation law” and the rest will follow. Is Trillanes the one to lead the way?

(Watch “Life after Last Christmas” with HTL and guests on TNT, GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Skycable Channel 213, www. gnntv-asia.com Sat., 8 p.m. and replay Sun., 8 a.m.; tune to 1098AM, Tues. to Fri. 5pm; ; visit http:// newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

WE TAKE A STAND

12/13/13 7:33 PM

Agriculture Reclaiming Our Seas and Fisheries The Western and Central Pacific is the world’s largest tuna fishery, with millions of people depending on it for food and their livelihoods. It is also an economic lifeline for many of the region’s small island states. But there is trouble in paradise.

More and more boats are entering the fishery from developed nations eager to profit from this US$7 billion per annum fishery. Pacific tuna stocks, in particular bigeye and yellowfi n tuna, are at record low levels. The fishery cannot sustain this anymore and further controls need to be urgently adopted by the Pacific Tuna Commission which met in Cairns recently.

Early one morning Greenpeace activists unfurled a large floating banner next to a fleet of longline vessels in a harbour at the heart of the tuna fishing grounds in the Pacific, calling on the tuna commission to act now to end overfishing and reduce the number of fishing boats in the region.

There are over 3,600 longline vessels registered to fish in the Pacific under scant regulation, often transshipping their ill-gotten catches at sea resulting in prolific illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing in the region.

And that’s not all: These vessels target sharks for the lucrative shark fi n trade and often provide their crew poor working conditions. Compounding the impact of out of control longline fishing is the use of destructive fish aggregation devices or FADs by purse seine fisheries.

Close to half of bigeye tuna caught in the region every year is taken by purse seine vessels that are supposed to be targeting the more resilient skipjack—

but in the process also catch bigeye tuna that haven’t had a chance to reach adulthood and reproduce.

Both the purse seine and long line fleets need to be brought under control in the Pacific this week if the region is to rescue its declining bigeye, yellowfi n and albacore stocks. The root cause of there just being too many boats with improved tuna plundering technology and efficiency must be urgently addressed.

Greenpeace has provided clear steps on how Pacific Island countries can transform their tuna to ensure that fishing is more sustainable and socially responsible where the benefits of this multi-billion dollar industry flows back into the pacific benefiting small communities rather than into the hands of money hungry foreigners.

They have even gone a step further and provided guidance on how the commission can ensure ocean friendly fishing in the region through an appropriate selection criterion for vessels that would ensure not only fewer boats and more fish but more ‘socially’ appropriate fishing vessels.

The science is clear and the countries that have profited from this fishery for the last decades now need to cut their fishing effort and fleet numbers in order to ensure a sustainable and profitable future.

Greenpeace will be watching the negotiations with the expectation that effective action is taken to reverse years of overfishing, reduce capacity and return the fishery to a healthier state. The livelihoods of an entire region depend on the actions that must be taken in Cairns.

Free Funds—Now Na!

B

Y the time this column is out, President Benigno ‘Nonoy’ S. Aquino III and the government agency’s assigned and responsible for the stewardship of the international aid given by various countries, including those from the United Nations (UN) agencies to the Philippines intended for the recent survivors of the devastating Super-typhoon “Yolanda” would by then, have given their respective explanations to the UN body, on how the said world fi nancial aid was used, and if they were fullyutilized for the good of the said survivors.

Perhaps, this accounting of the world’s aid to the country, was precipitated by the global news that touched on why such aid was not filtering to the right persons (the typhoon survivors), and how slow the pace of response and assistance came about. Among those very vocal during that period of global prime news included CNN and BBC. The country’s leadership, should in fact, have been grateful to the actual news reporting done by said international media, which awakened the call for global succor and eased up the suffering and pain of our brother Filipinos in the Visayan region who have lost their love one’s, including whatever piece of property they have worked very hard for so many years of their lives.

Reportage from Davao City

by Inquirer Mindanao’s Allan Nawal, this time, centered on the urgent calls made by Bayan Muna Representatives Neri Colmenares and Carlos Zarate, whose joint media statement sought the immediate negotiations for payment moratorium with the country’s debtors. They said “it would free up funds that could be used to rehabilitate areas devastated by the said super-typhoon, and “so that the country would be given ample funds and time to rehabilitate.”

Both lawmakers also emphasized: “we should review the national budget and see if we can free more funds intended for debt servicing, so that these can be re-channeled to the rehabilitation of devastated areas. Cases in point are the debt management fund, which is P85.18 billion, and the international commitments fund, which is P4.8 billion.”

Thus, Colmenares and Zarate asked for both the foreign and local banks to write off the interest payment of P333.9 billion for the year and to declare a moratorium on principal payments.

The said report concluded with the reminder to the nation’s leaders that the “rehabilitation efforts are so huge that they needed at least P100billion in funds.” My dear reader’s this one is indeed a lot of people’s money, if such would be derived from the coffers of government, which in turn, de-

EQUILIBRIUM Francis De Guzman rives its main source of funds from people’s taxes. It goes back to the point of what had transpired before the nation got hit by the super-typhoon, namely the Senate hearings on the controversial Janet Napoles ‘pork barrel scam’ that involved billions of pesos worth of people’s tax money. Where do we as a people, go from here? Your guess is as good as mine.

This column sends kudos to the country’s pound-for-pound hero –Manny “the Pacman” Pacquiao, who recently won a decisive victory over the United States’ challenger Brandon Rios and claim the WBO Welterweight crown. After facing another battle, this time back on home grounds with no less than BIR’s chief Kim Henares (where as of press time reports fi ltered in of a possible meeting by both “protagonists” to peacefully settle the issue) the “Man from Sarangani” visited “Yolanda” typhoon survivors (as he promised he would do so) and gave our poor kababayans in the affected areas of the Visayas who

suffered from the said calamities, about P1,000 each from his personal fund, where reports have it too, that his fi nancial assistance to the victim’s families began from 11 in the evening of Saturday and ended at 3 in the early Sunday morning of last weekend. He likewise gave out free Bibles to the said families for their spiritual reading of their only hope in “a God Who will never leave us nor forsake us.” As fellow Filipinos, may we never give up in sharing our love to our suffering people in said devastated areas (best no need for media trumpeting) by our shared prayers, food and monetary assistance via legitimate humanitarian groups and church volunteers.

Hopefully too, reports on the provincial branches of the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), whose continued assistance to survivors in the said typhoon stricken-areas, could truly really help in the replenishing of local supply of goods in order to aid in stabilizing several food situations via its Diskwento Caravans. Said caravan goods included bottle water, canned goods, coffee, milk, noodles, rice, biscuits, bread, condiment and personal care products among others. Perhaps it would have been better if the above products, thru its local manufacturers, were given free-of-charge to the people instead. What do you think folks?

The series of unforeseen

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tragedies only goes to show us folks, how fragile one’s life is on earth, that even in just a few seconds, everything can be gone. How blessed are those of us who are still alive up to this time, and have been given another chance by our Father God Almighty to repent of our sins, be saved, and transformed into the image and likeness of His only beloved Son Christ Jesus.

Indeed, He is a God of second chances, and His love for fallen mankind is beyond compare.

‘40-FOOT CHRISTMAS TREE’ LAUNCHED

Considered the biggest Christmas tree in the area, pioneering retailer Cherry Foodarama, (established in 1952 at Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City) officially launched its holiday season for Filipino consumers via its lighting of a 40-foot high Christmas tree with its kaleidoscope of lights, at its largest branch located at Marcos Highway, Antipolo City.

The said retail fi rm also celebrates its 61st year anniversary via its Grand Draw scheduled 14th Feb. 2014 with grand prizes for its two branches –Congressional Avenue and Antipolo City to benefit Filipino consumers. This includes a brand new 5-seater Toyota Avanza plus gift certificates among others.

(For comments and suggestions, kindly e-mail: francisdeguzman@ yahoo.com)

OpinYon

DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

9 12/13/13 7:33 PM

OPINION

The Deluge and its Apocalyptic Aftermath

T

HE most callous of men did not escape the torrent of emotions that engulf them upon seeing the devastation, wrought by the super typhoon “Yolanda” known internationally as storm, “Haiyan”, the worst typhoon or storm to hit a country in world history, as shown in video clips on television news – depicted in newspaper photographs, and described in terrifying graphic detail, by those who witnessed and survived the rampaging storm surge and floods that swept away thousands of men, women and children, sending them to their sudden deaths; seriously injuring and disabling thousands more, and more than a thousand persons either missing or dead; the ferocious waters that swept away hundreds of vehicles that cross their path to God knows where; the powerful wind running at 234 kilometers per hour that dismantled houses, blown away rooftops, broke window and door glasses; and uprooted trees that careened into different directions; and the cataclysmic force that literally flattened and obliterated entire cities and towns in the Eastern Visayas.

The apocalyptic aftermatch of the deluge was reminiscent of the holocaust in Japan when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atomic bombed by the United States in World War II, the atomic bomb was equivalent to twenty thousand (20,000) tons of TNT, killing thousands of Japanese and flattening the two (2) cities. The post-holocaust in Tacloban City and the neighboring tours reminds us of Hurricane Katrina, recorded to be the “deadliest and most destructive Atlantic tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season”, said to be “the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States.”

“At least 1,833 people died in the Hurricane and subsequent floods”, “with total property damage at $108 billion (2005 USD)”. The tragedy in that part of our country recalled the April 11, 2011 7.1 earthquake tsunami in Tohuku, Japan, that brought about “13,135 fatalities, 12,143 or 925%” of which “died by drowning.”

The extent of the physical dam-

age and the number of lives lost brought about by the killer typhoon “Yolanda” and the storm surge, including the injuries infl icted on the multitudes by the storm, were totally unexpected by both the national and local governments, this despite the country’s experience of being hit regularly by typhoons, one of the worsts of which prior to the present one was Typhoon Ondoy that flooded most part of Metro Manila.

The days subsequent to the landfall of Typhoon Yolanda and the storm surge saw the unprecedented magnitude of damage to life and property in the areas affected.

Tacloban City was - and still is, a pitiful sight of destruction.

Cadavers littered the streets, other corpses were found inside their homes or covered by debris, even as their relatives wailed over their loss – while other loved ones pull over the pile of dismantled and shattered houses, as they searched for dead bodies.

Many survivors who went thru the harrowing ordeal of clinging to dear lives – stunned, and momentarily – perhaps permanently – deprived of their sanity – walked like zombies while others limped aimlessly.

The resulting hunger of the victims and the lack of food supply – plus the clothes that went with the rushing floods – triggered the start by the survivors of emptying the groceries, supermarts, and restaurants of food items to feed their hungry stomachs and to quench their thirst – giving rise to an opportunity for some brigands and detainees who escaped from jails to take advantage of a calamity to loot all business establishments of their merchandise and wares.

There was no authority to enforce law and order – because those who have been tasked to take charge were themselves victims and incapacitated to perform their public functions – hence chaos and mob rule prevailed for the next three or four days.

Instantaneously, however, the response of the Filipinos outside of the ravaged area was swift and immediate. Relief goods of various quantities poured in many relief centers, public and private. Cash donations kept pouring in.

The Dreamweaver...

cluding Germany, France, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia.

originated from Turkey and the Middle East where cotton threads are tie-dyed before they are woven.

Narda revived the Cordillera ikat tradition designing and dying threads in vibrant colors to suit contemporary taste. Ikat is a very old tradition of tying and dyeing segments of threads before actual weaving. Narda’s new style of ikat in place mats, shawls and bags became a hit to foreign buyers.

Narda utilized the traditional back-strap weaving skills of the Ifugao in the Mountain Province to come up with a totally unique and exquisite design for her products. Soon, the vibrant colors of Narda’s Ikat products began showing as bags, shawls, scarves, placemats and rugs.

She started exporting her products to the world market in 1978, Japanese and American designers initially came to buy from her. In 1982, Bloomingdale’s New York featured Narda’s products in an all-Philippine sales exhibition. This eventually took Narda’s artistic creations to other parts of the globe in-

Awards

From page 12

Her success garnered for her the Golden Shell Award in 1982.

This is the highest recognition given by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to Filipino companies for “Excellence In Exports”. Other recognitions followed including the Countryside Investor Award given to her

by President Corazon Aquino and the Agora Award for outstanding achievement in export marketing by the Philippine Marketing Association.

This year, Capuyan bagged the Enrst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the small entrepreneur category Narda’s latest business venture include a decor line of rustic furniture and home accessories and an Art Collection of woven leather wall hangings and tapestry art work.

Her story was used in a television commercial commissioned by the Development Bank of the Philippines to drumbeat entrepreneurship, and Capuyan was soon hobnobbing with Philippine presidents, like the late Corazon Aquino who presented

COUNTER POINT

Atty. Salvador S. Panelo

However, delivering the relief goods to the victims was either painstakingly slow or out of sight, owing to the consequential restraints, like the roads have become impassable due to the fallen trees alongside debris that were strewn all over them – with the bridges that connect the towns being damaged or destroyed as well.

These roads could not immediately be cleared simply because it required heavy trucks and mechanized equipments to remove them – and the local governments do not have them. Those sent by the national government could not reach their destination as fast as it wanted precisely because the roads and bridges that they have to pass through have become inaccessible.

The next few days after the tragedy seemed to give the appearance of thousands of victims going hungry and thirsty with hundreds being untreated of their injuries, and thousands more without shelter from the elements, what with the relief goods coming in trickles. There was an air of helplessness, hopelessness and desperation as well, as the national government apparently unable to make a quick and effective response to the tragedy.

It was in this state of gloom and despair and of disorganized relief work when the CNN celebrated host-reporter Anderson Cooper arrived in Tacloban City.

He saw fi rsthand the heartwrenching sights and condition – that made him give the following live report to the global audience: “The situation in Tacloban City is miserable and very, very bad. What is happening in Tacloban is a demolition not a construction job.

her with the Countryside Investor Award in 1989.

Capuyan says she is in the middle of exploratory talks with five fashion designers who intend to develop a high-end line of garments using woven Cordillera fabrics.

Couture Fashion Week

Early last year, Capuyan’s

People are desperate. People do not have any for shelter. It’s very difficult for people to get food. There is no real evidence of organized recovery or relief.

It is a very desperate situation, among the most desperate I’ve seen in covering disasters in the last couple of years.

The people in Tacloban have great dignity and deserve better than what they have gotten.

“As for who exactly is in charge of the Philippine side of this operation, that is not really clear”.

Anderson Cooper’s commentary and observation on the Tacloban City situation went viral on the internet receiving a biting reaction from the famed and feisty ABC,-CBN Broadcaster Korina Sanchez, who happened to be the wife of Cabinet member and DILG Secretary Mar Roxas, who, together with Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, is in charge of the relief operations.

Korina Sanchez retorted to Anderson Cooper: “Anderson Cooper is not aware of what he is taking about.”

That reaction also went viral, too, in the internet.

In his CNN program, Anderson Cooper riposted to Korina Sanchez’s reaction: “Mrs. Sanchez is welcome to go there in Tacloban – and I would urge her to go there. I don’t know if she has but her husband’s the interior minister.

I’m sure he can arrange a fl ight.”

Of course the exchange between a local and an international broadcaster caught the attention of netizens and CNN & ABS-CBN viewers, and they expressed their sentiments on the exchange. Some siding with Anderson Cooper, while others took the side of Korina Sanchez.

My our son-lawyer Salvador A. Panelo, Jr., who could not contain his sentiment on the Anderson Cooper-Korina Sanchez tiff, as well as with those criticizing the government for its inadequate preparation to neutralize the effects of the hauler typhoon – and the national governments apparent slow response to the victims, posted in his Facebook, and in my Twitter account, the following statement:

fabrics were chosen by Couture Fashion Week founder and producer Andres Aquino, a Colombian-born American designer, for this year’s fashion week, prompting the weaver to consider reworking her choice of colors.

Capuyan’s signature fabrics combine solid hues of earth colors like red or brown. She says a New York audience “challenged me into trying out a new pattern without sacrificing the signature Narda’s designs.”

She ended up muting her earth tones and mixing her favored colors with purple and gray-toned yarn, which Aquino and Filipino designer Barge Ramos turned into men’s shirts, gowns, jackets and business suits.

“It was the fi rst time New York was introduced formally to Cordillera fabrics,” Capuyan said in an interview.

Approached by New York retailers, Capuyan says she told them the fabrics depicted the Cordillera culture, pointing out an image of the Ifugao rice terraces on a purple Cordillera ikat shirt.

“This was like tapestry,” she said.

She still uses the traditional WE TAKE A STAND

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“I agree with Korina Sanchez that Anderson Cooper does not know what he is talking about.

Criticism of government response to major natural or environmental disasters is universal.

The US government response to Hurricane Katrina in 2006 was a failure of leadership. “Even Japan with their much-vaunted reputation for organization was criticized for its slow response to the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and the consequent Fukishima leak. We should keep this in mind when assessing the performance of our own government. We should also keep in mind that while Mr. Cooper may very well be genuinely concerned about the pace of government, response, he is also very much in the business of selling news.

I firmly believe that our government is doing its best to help the victims of Yolanda. This is not inconsistent with the fact that its best may not be good or fast enough for everyone affected given the magnitude of the destruction and the various limitations and issues that mere observers can not fully appreciate.

Let us not forget that significant government resources are possibly still tied up to Bohol and Zamboanga.

I do think that P-Noy could have better explained why the government response could not come sooner and why air cannot be distributed faster. Let us just hope that that was more of a failure of speech and rhetoric, rather than leadership. We can take him to task for that later. For now, our unfortunate Visayan brothers and sisters need us to heed the advice we wished P-Noy had followed: stop pointing fingers. Let us help how we can help our government and let us follow through!”

The foregoing commentary of lawyer Salvador A. Panelo, Jr., is insightful – and eloquently said as well.

For Feedback: E-mail: salvadorpanelo@rocketmail.com ; Facebook: panelosalvador@gmail.com; Twitter: attysalvadorpanelo Text to: 0918-862- 7777

back strap but the opportunities opened by the New York event now allows her “to play with my work.”

“This time, I am making art.

My fabrics are simpler but when you look at it from afar, you see the layers for which Narda’s is known,” she says.

Jobs

“Narda’s provided jobs to over 600 Cordillera women weavers, until the earthquake hit Baguio in 1990. Narda’s spearheaded ‘Baguio Isubli Tayo’ (Let us rebuild Baguio) along with other Baguio producers by having earthquake sales in Manila to help generate jobs in Baguio,” it says.

Capuyan adds Narda’s remains a small enterprise, “and I intend to keep it that way.”

Unlike her Bloomingdale’s account, which required her to ship out volumes of blankets and other products, she believes her new transactions with American designers may be “less stressful.”

“They will expect me to produce one-of-a-kind fabrics so I don’t need to make so many copies. This will give me time to be an artist,” she smiles.

OpinYon

DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

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DECEMBER 16-22, 2013 • VOL.4 NO.17

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Millionaires Club

SECTIONS POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 BUSINESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 AGRICULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 FOREIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P1 LIFESTYLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P4

LEONARDA CAPUYAN

e Dream Weaver of Baguio

H

ER fabrics have been modeled on the runway of the Couture Fashion Week New York at the Waldorf Astoria last year after being selected as one of the Philippine representatives to the annual fashion event.

Her name is Leonarda Capuyan, the woman behind Narda’s Handwoven Arts and Crafts, a family planning nurse who became a successful exporter and business proprietor.

An Ernst and Young Entrepreneur awardee for 2013, Capuyan started her business in the 70s. Back then, weaving blankets and recycling acrylic yarns were just a pastime for her.

Little did she know that her hobby will soon become the backbone of her business.

Family Planning

A family planning nurse back then, Capuyan encouraged the women of her town to take up weaving. This was her alternative method of family planning—to keep the women busy and distract them from making more babies.

Capuyan bought scrap yarns in garment factories for a small sum and gave it to the women for weaving. She then paid them for their work and took the fi nished products and sold it to her friends.

The strategy worked well and soon enough, her sideline became a fulltime business and the women started weaving more than just blankets but also bedspreads, draperies and upholstery fabrics. It did not take long before hotels in Baguio and Manila such as the Hyatt Terraces, Manila Hilton, Manila Hotel and others recognized the artistry of the hand-woven crafts.

Narda’s business slowly flourished.

To sustain the growing demand for the raw scrap materials, Narda Capuyan sought assistance from government agencies to help study the feasibility of business expansion and to apply for a business loan to fi nance it. She got the support of the Philippine Board of Investments and other local business and trade agencies.

‘Ikat’

Later on, Mrs. Capuyan realized that there is a need for more readily available raw materials if she wants the business to survive and grow. In 1975, she met Miss Ellen Schattsneider, a textile weaving consultant for Product Development and Design Center of the Philippines. It was she who introduced Narda Capuyan to “ikat”, a weaving technique which Turn to page 11

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DECEMBER 16-22, 2013

OpinYon

NARDA Capuyan (in native Igorot dress) with Ben Chan and other fellow Ernst and Young 2013 awardees.

Narda utilized the traditional back-strap weaving skills of the Ifugao in the Mountain Province to come up with a totally unique and exquisite design for her products. Soon, the vibrant colors of Narda’s Ikat products began showing as bags, shawls, scarves, placemats and rugs.

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