Business, Economics and Consulting

In the same league as a Pacquiao-Mayweather bout, perhaps the most anticipated entertainment circus in current times is the return of the Corona impeachment trial on television. As with the beginning of the trial, the focus of the prosecution is still on the SALN of the Chief Justice – what is there, what is not there, and how what is there is the way that it is (read: zonal versus fair market values).

I remember my father telling once, when I was still in government, that if a person wanted to cheat his way to riches in public service, the way to do it would be to actually over-declare the value of his assets to bloat his net worth – so that when he accumulated the material gains from his corruption, he would have a high baseline to justify them right from the start. My father had a point: the mere possession of riches by a public servant does not necessarily mean that those riches were ill-gotten if he had them prior to joining government in the first place. My father warned me though to never even consider it.

The SALN, despite being created as a tool to help identify grafters and corrupters, may also be used to mask the fact of graft and corruption if one knows how to use it. In the end, the figures and entries in a SALN may be interpreted in the most disparately extreme ways, depending on one’s agenda and motives.

Nowadays, the buzz on the impeachment trial is whether Corona will take the witness stand to clarify, once and for all, the charges against him. Focus is on the existence of what is rumored to be ten million dollars’ worth of undeclared bank deposits. Defense lawyers consider this juicy piece of gossip as exactly that – gossip – and are fighting tooth and nail technically to stymie the presence of Corona on the witness stand.

I am not a lawyer, and I can be easily discombobulated with the technicalities that a legal expert can throw into the court. What I know, though, is that I concur with the Dalai Lama when he once said that, “at the end of the day, the only person we would have to live with is our self.“

Corona knows the existence or fiction behind these purported dollar accounts, and I leave it to the Senate to put forth their judgment based on facts beyond reasonable doubt and on the provisions of our laws.

But this is not about Corona. My ultimate concern is how much importance we give towards our concept of honesty, and how much we practice this value as reflected in our integrity.

It has been a month since April 15. Did you pay the right taxes? Cheating on them compromises our government’s ability to provide basic social services to the people. Do you pay your employees the right wages? There is great power and even greater responsibility in being able to dictate the quality of life of the people who work for us. Do you provide the goods and services you promised to your customers? Providing the market with something that is not the best you can offeris an insult to both the market and to yourself. Are your prices fair and give value for money? When the answer is no – that makes you a cheater.

We are not mere spectators in the impeachmenttrial. The moral high ground from which we precariously perch does not make us righteous judges on this case against Corona.

It is only when we know we do not lie, cheat, corrupt and give in to avarice can we sleep at night. This is what I wish not only for Corona, the Senate and all government officials and employees but, most importantly, for every Filipino with or without a SALN to his name.

Honesty is not supposed to be a lonely word.

In my previous column, I emphasized the need for PNoy’s administration to provide clarity as to how it intends to harmonize and manage power generation, distribution, privatization and NAPOCOR debt in such a way that the energy needs of Mindanao are met – without its people needing to subsidize the process of making electricity provision efficient and reliable.

In my previous column, I also underscored the dissent created by PNoy’s Mindanao Power Summit speech, where he made it an issue of being between THEM and US. I am done ranting, and decided to write today’s column as a direct response to the challenge created by that Friday the 13th speech.

If Imperial Manila is implying that we are on our own in this crisis, here is my four cents worth on how Mindanaoans can be empowered (pun definitely intended!) by clear policy to take care of themselves.

Power barges have been identified as a critical albeit short-term component for effectively bridging power demand and supply. Barges use diesel to generate energy. Would it be too simplistic to suggest that by removing the VAT imposed on diesel used for power barges and readjusting the rates so that consumers are the direct beneficiary of VAT removal, this will result to a win-win situation for both providers and consumers? The duration of VAT suspension may be computed based on the capacity of each barge, the volume of diesel used for operations, and the anticipated operationalization of additional, long-term power generation infrastructure, among other critical factors.

Since the crisis is a direct result of supply not meeting demand, there is a serious need to review policies that detract from the establishment of power generating-related infrastructure. PNoy does not need emergency powers. But, the deficit is an emergency and therefore, policies must encourage the implementation of solutions (i.e. sources of energy that consistently deliver the goods such as – the viable – coal). If policies are detrimental to potential providers, there is no better time to seriously rethink the rationale for them than now. For instance, incentives may be put in place for providers, provided that these incentives should translate to direct benefits to consumers.

Congruent to policy review and revision, the autonomy of LGUs also needs to be reinforced. Vic Lao hit the nail on the head when he said that the Mindanao power crisis can best be solved by Mindanaoans; and who better to take the lead than Mindanao’s local leadership? Incentives for generators can be provided by LGUs, who in turn provide a safe location for power generation and distribution. It is worth noting, however, that these LGU-led incentives should never be constrained by national policies.

My last cent: there is so much hoopla about sustainable energy sources, particularly solar, which environmentalists harp about despite its high cost. If solar power is so palatable and massive replication is being advocated, then government must find a way to make the technology accessible to ordinary Filipinos. China produces the cheapest solar panels – Pnoy does not want Chinese panels here as he advocates in the same breath for solar panels on the roof of every Filipino home. His reason? Scarborough. Come on, every other product in the Philippine market today is made in China! Was PNoy even thinking when he made that statement?

If this administration wants to prove that it has the capacity to think critically, it must also demonstrate the ability for forward thinking. What PNoy needs to do is not just to implement policies that simply stymie the crisis in the present time. He should also be able to put in place a long-term strategy that is able to project the increasing power demands of the entire country and make provisions that such demands will be met.

They say it is better to light just one little candle than to stumble in the dark. But I demand more from the government. We deserve better than one little candle.

The date could not have given a more appropriate sense of foreboding: Friday the Thirteenth, and PNoy was to address Mindanaoans during the much-anticipated Power Summit. I exerted a lot of effort to keep abreast of the President’s declarations. After all, I consider myself a Mindanaoan after happily living in Davao for the past 12 years, and I wanted to hear what he had to say and the solutions he would offer to the insufferable brownouts we have been having.

I downloaded the transcript of PNoy’s Power Summit speech as soon as it was made available on the internet. To say I was disappointed is a severe understatement – I was angry at the audacity and condescension in the statements he made.

To quote my favorite lines verbatim:

“Mindanao was exempted from the EPIRA and there was an oversupply for YOUR power, more than adequate for YOUR needs… But the old assumptions that allowed YOU to rely on hydropower are not there anymore – YOU need a more diverse mix of energy resources. If any of YOUR power plants malfunctions, the problem returns (sic)”.

“Can government pay for new plants plus old loans and still provide the services and facilities YOU need? YOU NEED TO PAY MORE… There are only two choices: pay a little more, or live with the rotating brownouts. What WE need YOU to realize is that the old days of cheap power are no longer sustainable and YOU must also put in YOUR fair share in solving this problem.”

“And that is why I am here, not just to show all of you that WE are focused on the problems YOU are facing but more importantly, that WE do not want YOUR region to just get by these next one or two years. WE want YOU to be a pillar of our economy in the coming decades.”

Oh the rhetorics – I felt sad and insulted. Imperial Manila is alive and well and it has chosen to spit on the faces of the people who only seek relief from the darkness. In its heyday of excess power supply, Mindanao effectively augmented the deficit of the rest of the nation. Now that it is suffering, as after the People Power Revolution, what gives this administration the right to call this something between THEM and US?

The audacity to ask Mindanaons to pay more is wrong. Even from an economic standpoint, it has been proven that people may be willing to pay more if the services being provided – whether by the public or private sector – is efficient and reliable. However, to ask us to subsidize the PROCESS of making power generation and distribution more efficient and reliable (as if the generation and distribution charges reflected in our monthly electric bills have not been enough!) is an injustice and points to a lack of foresight and good governance.

What was sorely lacking in PNoy’s Friday the 13th speech (and it was nothing more than that) was even just an indicative policy direction on how this administration intends to manage NAPOCOR debt, power generation and distribution and privatization in a way that would give the people relief from the darkness that it knew was a long time coming.

By depriving Mindanaoans clarity on what he intends to do, PNoy provided fodder for dissent and highlighted his incapacity to substantially assess and properly manage sensitive issues that have national implications.

It was bad enough that his speech was rhetoric. What made itworse was that the rhetoric told Mindanaoans to basically screw themselves.