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The bandits will not stop

NO HOLDS BARRED

Armida Siguion-Reyna

05/13/2008

We’re told Malacañang is “miffed” about the wickedly straight-to-the point Meralco full-page ads that came out in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, within the three days just past.

“Walang ‘Tong-Pats’ ang Generation Charge ng Meralco” screamed the Saturday, May 10 release, complete with a table that explained the Lopez-owned company’s 49 percent of electricity purchases from the National Power Corporation were highest at P4.76/kWh at contract rates and P6.02/kWh to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, compared to the selling prices of independent power providers Sta. Rita, San Lorenzo, and Quezon Power.

The numbers are neatly laid out to enable you to quickly see the price differences and make you agree with the questions raised therein: Why is it being made to appear that Meralco alone is to blame for excessive electricity rates when it is the government-run Napocor that is selling the highest, as it also owns and controls 73 percent of electricity? Indeed, “Sino kaya ang may tong-pats?”

The Sunday May 11 placement asked this, in big, bold font: “May ‘Bukol’ ba ang Presyo ng Napocor Electricity?” Followed by “Bakit kaya umaabot ng higit sa P9.00/kWh ang generation cost ng Napocor sa Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (Wesm)? Just the day before you were told the Napocor Wesm costs went as high as P6.02/kWh, now you’re told it goes higher yet, to as much as P9.00/kWh.

Angry, you get angrier still, with the next line that’s labeled “KATOTOHANAN,” all caps. “Napocor ang bukod-tanging bumibili ng fuel para sa lahat ng mga planta ng kanyang Independent Power Producers (NPC-IPP).

“Halimbawa: Sa 2008, bibili ang Napocor ng fuel na nagkakahalagang P66 BILYON(foreign and domestic) para sa kanyang IPPs.

“Bakit kaya bumibili ang Napocor ng per shipment kung mas mura bumili pag long term contract?

“Eto kaya ang dahilan kung bakit naaantala ang privatization ng Napocor?

“Eto kaya ang dahilan kung bakit may bukol ang presyo ng kuryente natin?”

With the stacks loaded against Napocor for two days now, you momentarily pause and consider being kind. After all, an ad is an ad is an ad. It’s meant to push you strongly toward one side of an argument, and here in this case, pro-Meralco and anti-Napocor. But just as you’re thinking of giving the power-agency the benefit of the doubt, you read that Malacañang looks at the ads as blackmail — hey, wait a minute now. Who’s been consistently doing the blackmailing this sorry part of the globe, for anything and everything, but Team Gloria?

So tong-pats and bukol surfaced in the NBN-ZTTE hearings as words used in corrupt wheeling and dealing. What’s to stop other entities from using such for their own purposes, more so if the usage is connected yet again to corruption and other nefarious instances of wheeling and dealing?

Malacañang complains about the ads, but even as perhaps it holds the patent to the new context of tong-pats and bukol, the brazenness doesn’t end there. Sergio Apostol, literally neither here nor there in the Palace, enters the picture to arguably earn points and put him higher in his president’s esteem, adds insult to injury as he challenges those who came out with the advertisements “to name names,” so that those who received tong-pats would be prosecuted, because “President Arroyo does not tolerate corruption.”

As yesterday’s third of the pro-Meralco ads went, “Tama na ang bolahan!!!”

How to stop the pambobola is one of the many problems of an administration so steeped in dishing out lies to cover up rapacious thievery, incapacity or downright katangahan. For instance, Napocor last weekend denied overcharging but says it will nonetheless refund — go, figure. If that’s not downright stupidity — mayro’n bang walang utang pero payag magbayad — then it can only be an attempt to mislead us into thinking Napocor’s the good guy here, and Meralco, the devil.

I’m not saying I’m completely on the Meralco side of things, but even given my hefty monthly electric bill and Napocor’s denials of shenanigans, it really and actually did collect somewhere in the vicinity of P10 billion from July 2006 to March 28, without the required Energy Regulation Commission documents. It’s a grave omission that the brilliant minds at the ERC overlooked for 22 months, and now government tells us it will do a better job running Meralco?

On its own Meralco complains about the no-choice situation of having to charge customers for system losses, or the loss of electricity from thieves that jumpstart on illegal connections and technical and administrative kapalpakan. I cannot agree that this is a no-choice situation, but even as I gather that low-end pilferage occurs with the connivance of low-ranked Meralco field employees, pending proof customers will have to uniformly bear the brunt.

If Meralco can’t handle this, how much more can a government electrical utilities enterprise? Not with a Commission on Elections that cannot correctly count votes. Not with a military that cannot afford to give real bullets, much less working handheld radios, to its soldiers. Not with a National Food Authority that cannot control hoarders from illegally stocking up rice. Not with a president that’s not really president, to begin with, and so quick to deny her failures and blame the media and her critics in the face of crises.

The truth is, it’s really ABS-CBN that Gloria wants and she’s using the people’s outrage at their sky-high electric bills to get it. So far, it’s heartening to see the Lopezes fight back, but unless we fight back as a nation, it will be Meralco now, ABS-CBN tomorrow, and soon, your own Andok’s Lechong Manok franchise.

The bandits will not stop until they get everything.

This month’s Aawitan Kita sa Makati goes onstage this Thursday, May 15, as a special show for the numerous sister city and municipality delegations participating in Makati City’s 338th Foundation Anniversary celebration from May 2, until June 4.

Entitled May Iba Pang Mukha ang Pag-ibig, the program features Bimbo Cerrudo, Cris Villonco, Bayang Barrios, Joel Villaflor, Allan Alojipan, Raymond Tolentino, Sisa Esteva, balikbayan Leila Atienza and yours truly, directed by Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, from the script of Bibeth Orteza, 5:30 p.m., at the 6th floor auditorium of the University of Makati.

Admission is free, courtesy of the Office of the Mayor of Makati. Go watch, and find out for yourself there are still reasons to be proud one is Filipino.

(For comments, write to armida114@yahoo.com)