“In fact, the possibility of high-end custom-designed electric golf carts could also become a lucrative business.”
by Ducky Paredes
Mayor Jejomar Binay of Makati is perfect for his role as the Johnny Appleseed of the electric jeepney in the Philippines. He now has four e-jeeps running in Legaspi and Salcedo Villages. The first two were a pure experiment funded by Solar Electric Corporation Incorporated (Solarco) and the Green Renewable Independent Power Producers Incorporated (GRIPP) which brought in two prototypes from Guangzhou, China at P371,280 each.
The additional two new e-jeeps were manufactured by the Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (MVPMAP)
The e-jeepneys operate only from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. They need to be re-charged after 100 kilometers which they can run at the speed of 40 kph. A full charge costs about P50. Compare this to gasoline at P60 a liter today ang only God knows how much gasoline will be tomorrow.
Says Binay: “For now, the jeepneys will run on private roads. However, we envision that it will soon be a common sight on Makati’s jeepney routes. We are very optimistic about the positive impact of the electric jeepneys on the air quality of our city and other key cities of the country as well.”
What I see in this is that all of the tricycles operating within Metro Manila most of which are noisy ang polluting ought to be replaced with e-jeeps which will be cheaper to run for the drivers (who pay for the gasoline consumed) and quieter since they run silently on batteries.
Just from what they can save on gasoline, tricycle drivers should even be able to pay for their units themselves. Hopefully, there will be other entrepreneurs who will become interested in manufacturing electric vehicles and auxiliary electric motors for vehicles. I also see the possibility of their making electric golf carts, which for now are all still imported and are very expensive.
In fact, the possibility of high-end custom-designed electric golf carts could also become a lucrative business.
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Our garbage woes in Metro Manila started when Rizal Province elected its present governor. Mayor Pedro Cuerpo of Rodriguez, Rizal had a good thing going. He had a 14-hectare sanitary landfill in his town which he contract to the Metro Manila Development authority (MMDA). I must confess that I really do not know any more details than that but the subsequent events leading up t lour present crisis indicate that what has happened here is a quarrel over money between the new governor of Rizal and Mayor Cuerpo.
If there was anything really wrong with the Rodriguez landfill, why did not the former governor (the father of the present one) find it? With the new governor, there was another landfill created in the town of Rodriguez (owned by the operator of the Rodriguez town-owned landfill. As soon as this new landfill was operational, the permit to operate of the landfill owned by Rodriguez town was cancelled by the Governor on the pretext that the town-owned landfill was already full besides a host of other violations that the provincial government purportedly discovered. When Mayor Cuerpo balked, he was suspended by the governor.
Because of this, we in Metro Manila have n o place to dump our garbage and must beg the Rizal governor to find it in his heart to allow us to dump n Rodriguez town.
Now comes Mayor Cuerpo with an offer of a dumping fee of only P360 per metric town if we use his town’s 14-hectare landfill instead of the 19-hectare landfill owned by private persons which charges P600 per MT.
The only catch to Cuerpo’s letter to the President, the MMDA and the various towns and cities in and around Metro Manila is that they will have to find a way to re-open the Rodriguez town’s own landfill, which is in competition of the governor’s preferred landfill owned by private persons.
A governor who works against the interests of is own constituents in Rodriguez town? Imagine that!
What the hell is really going on in the Province of Rizal? How much money are we talking about in this and who is getting the biggest chunk of that money. Is this similar to the difference between what was officially collected from a quarry operation by a province when the old governor was still in office and when the new one came in? As I remember, this was in the millions, even (over the years) billions.
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Rack up two more for the bad buys. Sixty year old Bert Sison, a correspondent of the weekly Regional Bulletin and host of radio program Harana aired over dzAT-AM based in Lucena City, was driving to his Toyota Barangay Guisguis home when he was assassinated.
The last killing of a journalist in Lucena was in May 2003, when Apolinario “Polly” Pobeda, a radio announcer was also shot dead while on his way to work.
“This climate of impunity against journalists has to end. The government must now act decisively to stop all these killings and harassments of journalists,” the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) said.
Since President Arroyo came to power in 2001, at least 57 journalists have been killed.
In April, the New York-based journalism watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists ranked the Philippines at sixth in its index of the world’s most dangerous countries for the press.
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I somehow find some comfort in the fact that the Court of Appeals has affirmed the conviction for frustrated estafa of US-based businesswoman Blanquita Pelaez, earlier meted out by the Makati regional trial court.
That woman always seemed too good to be real.
She took on Panfilo Lacson over a handcuffs deal she had negotiated with Ping’s predecessors as PNP chiefs. She insisted that custom duties and taxes be waived since she was working on a government purchase for the Philippine National Police. Ping wanted no part of her or her deal.
Now, the CA has affirmed Pelaez’s sentence of six months to four years of jail time and an indemnity of P540,000 to be paid her victim Erlinda Sanceda.
The case was filed in 1997 and may still be appealed to he Supreme Court. Final conviction can take another five to ten years.
That is among the things very wrong with our justice system!
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hvp 07.02.08)
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