“Noli’s problem is understandable. He would be an unknown if the Lopez family that controls Meralco had not picked him to be the premier newsreader in ABS-CBN.”
by Ducky Paredes
The silence of Vice President Noli de Castro as the reality of the unconscionably high power distribution rates of Meralco sets in to the public consciousness would be understandable if he were no longer interested in public office after his term ends in 2010.
If he has further ambitions to remain in office, he ought to speak up. First of all, it is becoming clear that most of his political allies and his main political patron – the President – are one in showing an interest in how to bring down what we pay for electricity.
Second, our high rates (among the highest in our part of the world) have been among the negatives whenever anyone considers investing in this country.
Noli’s problem is understandable. He would be an unknown if the Lopez family that controls Meralco had not picked him to be the premier newsreader in ABS-CBN (another Lopez company). Noli was then a nobody. After he started voicing the TV news, he became an instant celebrity.
(Another politician who took the same path to fame was Senator Loren Legarda and while she has also been silent on the present issue, she has already shown her independence from her former employer in many ways.}
GSIS President Winston Garcia who (through GSIS) controls 30 % of the shares of Meralco wonders why Meralco charges its Luzon customers more than what power distributors in his native Cebu are charging their customers. Winston, as a shareholder, wants to know why this is and demands that the books of the company be opened to him. Meralco has refused saying it cannot trust Garcia not to divulge company secrets to its competitors and the government.
What is really keeping the Vice President from taking up the cause of the millions of poor Filipinos suffering from high food and power prices? Noli says that these poor folk voted for him in 2004; if they actually did, shouldn’t he now take up their cause? Should he just allow them to suffer higher power rates without even asking Meralco to explain it?
Or is Noli, after all these many years as a senator and the country’s No 2 man still beholden to the Lopezes? Is he hoping that the family will still help him become President in 2010?
Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez speaking about opposition congressmen says: “To defend Meralco, whose high rates are making life doubly hard for our people, runs against the grain of many of my colleagues’ avowed stance in the past.
“Thus, I am puzzled why they have dropped their populist positions all of a sudden to defend Meralco by mouthing its line that the government is out to wrest control of the company.”
The same observation can be made about our Vice President.
Manila Rep. Amado Bagatsing says that the fight over Meralco is one between “the poor and corporate greed, and transparency against keeping Filipinos in the dark on why they are saddled with the highest electricity rates in Southeast Asia.
”There can be no fence-sitters in this issue. Either you’re with our long-suffering countrymen or you’re not in this battle royale. I am, thus, bewildered why self-proclaimed pro-poor politicians are suddenly defending Meralco.”
Bagatsing stressed that those who have less in life should have more in law, thus he is moving for the repeal of a law – Republic Act 7832 – which he said is being used by Meralco as an excuse to hike power rates.
RA 7832, or the Anti-electricity and Electric Transmission Lines-Materials Pilferage Act of 1994, allows power distributors like Meralco to pass on to their customers up to 9.5 percent of their so-called systems losses.
Systems losses refer to electricity lost to pilferage and its inefficient distribution.
Bagatsing explained that RA 7832 is a “class legislation” in that it allows power distributors to recover losses by passing them on to the public, something which is not available to other utilities: “This law penalizes the people for the incompetence of power distributors like Meralco to crack down on pilferers and their inefficiency in distributing power.
”RA 7832 has to go. It rewards corporate inefficiency while penalizes consumers over things that are no fault of theirs.”
In 2003, the Supreme Court found Meralco passing on to its customers its income tax charges from 1994 to 2003. The high court promptly ordered the company to refund its customers P30 billion.
The following year, the Supreme Court again stopped Meralco’s collection of a provisional increase, which was not subjected to public scrutiny.
Thus, whatever Meralco does now, it is fair to assume that (having been found out before to be doing so) that it could again be in violation of ethical practices.
National Labor Union (NLU) president Dave Diwa chimes in with this observation: “Vice President De Castro cannot wait for a script to read because if one comes his way from the Lopezes, it would surely run against the interest of the people who he claimed voted for him.
“It’s a make or break situation for him, and he cannot keep mum on it.”
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From a American veteran who fought World War II in the Philippines comes this bit: “Your article on ‘white Pinoys’ reminded me of once when I was at a fiesta in a barrio in Cebu, We were playing softball and the umpire said to me: ‘Mr. Steve, do you know why the Filipino is brown?’
“I said no. He proceeded to tell me that when God made man, he made him out of bread dough and put him in the oven to cook. After 5 minutes he took him out and said, “He is too white.” He then made another man out of dough and put him in the oven and raised the heat and after 20 minutes he took him out and said, “He is too black”. He then made another and put him in the oven and reduced the heat and took him out in 10 minutes and took him out and he was a nice brown and the Lord said: ‘Perfect!’
“I do not think that your legislators are colonially minded; I know that they are Dollar minded.“
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hvp 05.11.08)
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