Obfuscated issues

EDITORIAL

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05/18/2008

The vicious war of intrigues between Gloria and the Lopezes has raised the danger of valid issues including the National Broadband Network (NBN) scandal and the high cost of electricity being sucked up into the whirlpool of perceptions of political play.

The accusations being hurled between the two camps are too severe to be left unnoticed, which many political sectors are now doing as they say the matter is for the two camps to wage on.

The accusations being hurled at each other, nevertheless, involve public interest mainly because public money is involved.

Gloria’s undue interest in the NBN anomaly, which all cost an overpriced $329 million and was awarded to Chinese supplier ZTE, is a public issue and should not be consigned to just having been dug up by the Lopezes to fight back Gloria’s current assault against the family’s dominance in power giant Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

For what they are worth, the pieces of evidence surfacing that seem to be progressively incriminating for the alleged plundering couple, were obviously stashed away to be used as a bargaining chip.

On the other side, the issues being raked up by Gloria and her allies about the Lopezes’ alleged abuse of its hold on Meralco that greatly contributes to the high cost of electricity is a genuine gut issue for the public, make no mistake about that.

What is apparent in the current trade of barbs between Gloria and the Lopezes is that all the muck being thrown from one camp to the other is all meant to get public attention rather than redress, particularly on the side of Gloria and her ilk.

Despite all the charges of abuse coming from Gloria and her allies, nothing is being done about these, considering that it is the President and nearly all the Palace authorities that are making the accusations. And notably, they haven’t accused the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) or the National Power Corp, which are as much to blame as Meralco for the abuses and high electricity cost, not to mention corruption.

The best that the Department of Justice can muster, for instance, was to announce it is charging Meralco over the fees that it imposes on electricity users for the use of electric meters.

The fact is that it was government itself, through the ERC, that approves all that Meralco or any power utility firms charge.

The amount of systems losses, for instance, supposedly goes through the review of the ERC. Even if the electricity sector is already liberalized, similar to the oil industry, it is still the government, or the ERC’s responsibility to check on the accuracy of what Meralco has been collecting from consumers.

The accusations, by themselves, are no doubt are valid, but these that are coming from Gloria make the charges tainted with vested interest. The Lopezes have almost the same problem on credibility but for a different reason.

Meralco had, for so long, told consumers that it never benefited from any electricity rate increases that have become a Filipino family budget’s biggest burden. This is definitely not so.

Just last month, an ordinary family’s electricity bill had almost tripled. Then came questions about Meralco and its satellite offices charging their electricity consumption on consumers, which Meralco officials, in a cavalier fashion, admitted doing, saying in many words that it was a privilege extended Meralco under the law.

When its sister broadcast company, ABS-CBN, came out with stories about witness “Alex” unveiling new revelations on Gloria’s deep involvement in the NBN scam, the value of the exposés was somewhat diminished since it too obviously had self interest as motive.

At the end of all this, it would still be Gloria and Meralco that would be raking in gains with the public dismissing the serious allegations brought up by the two camps as nothing but ammunitions used in a political feud.

Gloria actually gains the most from using the feud as reason for the new NBN scam charges leveled against her.

With Gloria’s popularity rating hitting lower than rock bottom, what else can she lose?

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