Privatized, foreign-controlled elections: the original sin

“Comelec privatized our elections and allowed foreign firms to control it” (Representatives of US-based Dominion hand over a CD containing the PCOS source code to poll chief Sixto Brillantes; Photo from The Philippine Star)

The ever controversial source code is now finally available, so says poll chief Sixto Brillantes. The catch, however, is that the review can be finished only well after the elections on Monday (May 13). The review could last for as long as six months, meaning the results will be known by as late as November. This also means that we will indeed be forced to entrust our votes to an un-scrutinized computer program. If it had serious problems, we will know after the damage has been already done. Imagine the chaos it will create if the post-election review of the source code found loopholes a high-tech Garci can easily exploit to operate an electronic dagdag-bawas.

Beyond Brillantes and Comelec

Common opinion says that such predicament could have been avoided had the Commission on Elections (Comelec) simply followed what is required under the law. Republic Act (RA) 9369 or the amended Automated Election System (AES) Law mandates the review of the source code by political parties and interest groups. Poll officials failed to implement this. The primary author of the AES Law, senatorial bet Richard Gordon, has argued before the Supreme Court (SC) that such review is imperative. The elections could not proceed without it, he said.

Is it because of plain neglect of Brillantes and the Comelec that the pre-election review was not conducted? Maybe to a certain extent. But what really hostaged the availability of the source code is the fact that it is a private technology marketed for profits by a foreign company. And that’s the original sin, so to speak.  The Comelec privatized our elections and allowed foreign firms to control it through their patented software and technology. That’s where Comelec’s bigger accountability lies.

The basic issue of private and foreign control was not corrected when Comelec bought the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines from London (UK)-based Smarmatic International Corp. in March last year. In the first place, the decision to buy the machines was more about budget constraints. Leasing brand new units entails P6.2 billion. On the other hand, Comelec reportedly spent just P1.8 billion to purchase the 81,280 PCOS machines it leased from Smartmatic in 2010. However, the know-how and technology remained with the foreign vendors.

Indeed, the AES has made Philippine elections a multi-billion peso industry dominated by foreign companies. Aside from supplying the PCOS machines for P1.8 billion, Smartmatic also cornered five other contracts with the Comelec for the 2013 polls. One is the provision through a call center of operations and technical support services to field personnel of the Comelec who will man the PCOS machines. This contract is worth P111.6 million. The others are the P405.4-million election results (ER) transmission services; the P154.5-million transmission modems; the P46.5-million compact flash (CF) cards main; and the P46.5-million CF cards worm. All in all, these Smartmatic-Comelec deals are worth almost P2.6 billion.

Corporate dispute

But Smartmatic’s monopoly of Philippine elections (and in other countries as well) is being challenged by a fellow foreign vendor. As we discovered, Smartmatic only owns the PCOS machines but not the software to run them. The software is owned by Denver (US)-based Dominion Voting Systems which unilaterally terminated in May 2012 its license agreement with Smartmatic for the Philippine elections. It led to a legal dispute in a Delaware (US) court in September 2012. Corporate legal disputes between the two election vendors are also ongoing in Mongolia and Puerto Rico.

Thus, Brillantes and the Comelec could not release the PCOS source code owned by Dominion for public review because of possible legal issues. The situation was truly odd – the entire nation was held hostage by the conflicting private interests of multinational companies. It highlighted how under the current AES, elections as a supposed exercise of national sovereignty can be so easily undermined by foreign firms that are unaccountable to anyone except their profit-seeking investors.

Prior to the agreement between Smartmatic and Dominion to allow a public review of the PCOS source code, Brillantes has repeatedly assured AES critics that SLI Global Solutions has already certified the PCOS source code so we need not worry about its trustworthiness. SLI is the third party reviewer contracted by Comelec to scrutinize the PCOS source code. Like Dominion, SLI is also based in Denver and provides “software testing, quality assurance, and independent verification and validation”. IT firms from the same US state – and with presumably many business deals forged between them in the past (like this one) – are not exactly reassuring.

Note also that because of the dispute between Smartmatic and Dominion, the additional eight enhancements to the PCOS source code that Comelec asked have not been implemented. It is unclear what exactly these enhancements are, but we know for a fact that the PCOS machines showed insufficient accuracy in properly counting the votes, among other errors, as shown in the mock elections and in the final testing and sealing (FTS). Brillantes, however, kept telling us to just give our full trust to these unaccountable, profit-driven foreign companies. It does not help that in agreeing to give the PCOS source code for public review, Smartmatic and Dominion forged a deal riddled with confidential provisions. Brillantes was quoted as saying said that these terms are covered by a non-disclosure clause and are “personal” to the disputing companies; never mind if what is at stake is the national interest.

Canvassing source code

The PCOS software or source code is just one aspect. Seldom talked about is the source code of the Canvassing and Consolidation System (CCS), which Comelec also purchased from Smartmatic for P36.6 million. Unlike the PCOS source code, the CCS source code supposedly underwent review by the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). However, we have not tested the reliability of the CCS because the FTS of the Comelec did not include the transmission, canvassing and consolidation of votes. Furthermore, the enhancements to the CCS source code were apparently not implemented, again due to Dominion’s termination of its agreement with Smartmatic. Note that in 2010, grave concerns were raised on the security and reliability of the CCS that could have resulted in wholesale cheating.

One well-documented case of possible electronic fraud using the transmission server is Biliran. The Philippine Computer Society (PCS) identified the following instances as probable proofs of electronic fraud in the province during the 2010 automated polls: (1) The Municipal Board of Canvassers (MBOC) computer received transmission of two different elections results from two different internet addresses; (2) The MBOC received a successful transmission of results from a precinct where the PCOS machine was reported to have shut down without transmitting anything; and (3) The MBOC received transmission of results 29 hours after the polling place had already closed.

The PCS explained that the first instance shows that the MBOC computers could receive results for the same precinct from several PCOS machines. The second instance, meanwhile, shows that MBOC computers could receive results independent of the PCOS machine assigned to the precinct. These two instances demonstrate that a poll cheat with access to an unauthorized PCOS machine can transmit doctored results to the MBOC.  Finally, receiving results beyond what the PCS called as “common sense range of time for transmission delay” provides cheats a very wide window to alter the authentic elections results.

Comelec accountability

While privatization and foreign control are the underlying reasons for the numerous problems facing our elections, Comelec is accountable as well along with Smartmatic and Dominion. The poll body colluded with these foreign vendors of election technology in undermining our right to vote and our right to credible, democratic and transparent elections by instituting the type of flawed AES in 2010 and again this year. Because it entered into multi-billion peso contracts with foreign companies, it is hell-bent in defending the expensive AES despite the obvious and serious defects of the system.

Elections in the Philippines are structurally flawed; winners are determined by how much guns, goons and gold they have. It marginalizes the poor and powerless while legitimizing the domination of the political and economic elite and creating the illusion of democracy. Poll automation was seen as a step forward to address some of these issues. But with the type of AES we have, it appears that we have even taken a step backward. Modernizing our electoral process through the use of technology is not necessarily wrong. However, modernization should promote transparency, credibility, accountability and people empowerment, all of which are seriously being subverted by the privatized and foreign-controlled AES of the Comelec. (End)

LRT 1 privatization: public to bear costs of guaranteed private profits

Photo from Bulatlat.com

It’s the same old story. We have seen it before in the privatization of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) where consumers are now being forced to pay more to shoulder stranded costs arising from sweetheart deals with private power generators. We have seen it in the privatization of the MRT where government has been insisting to hike fares to pay for financial obligations arising from guaranteed profits and debt payments. Both punish the public with exorbitant fees and drain the already scant resources of government.

The same fate awaits the Filipino people if the P60-billion privatization and line extension of LRT 1, the largest public-private partnership (PPP) project of President Benigno Aquino III to date, will not be stopped.

Those who are interested to look into the details of the LRT 1 privatization may download a copy of the draft 32-year concession agreement here. Scrutinizing the draft contract, we will see that despite the repeated denial by its officials, the Aquino administration will continue the usual practice of providing state guarantees to peddle its privatization program. And as you might expect, such guarantees will come at the great expense of the public.

Top-up provision

If the private operators of the MRT were granted with a guaranteed 15% return on investment (ROI) annually, the winning bidder for the LRT 1 privatization will enjoy a so-called top-up subsidy. The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), the agency in charge of LRT 1 privatization, explained that the top-up provision will entail the government to shoulder the difference between the pre-approved fares contained in the concession deal and the actual fares that authorities will be able to actually implement.

This is essentially a profit guarantee for the private operator and can be found in Section 20 (on Concessionaire Revenues) of the draft concession agreement for LRT 1 privatization. Under the draft contract, the concessionaire will be entitled to a notional fare (Section 20.3.a) that shall be agreed upon by the government and the winning bidder to ensure the commercial profitability of the system. The notional fare would be periodically adjusted (read: increased) during the entire 32-year concession period. Section 20.4.a of the draft contract, meanwhile, states that: “In any period, where the Approved Fare is lower than the Notional Fare, the Grantors shall pay to the Concessionaire a Deficit Payment (“DP”), to reflect the difference between the Notional Fare (NF) and the Approved Fare (AF).” The Grantors refer to the DOTC and the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA).

Concretely, this means that if the DOTC or LRTA could not implement a certain fare level for LRT 1 as committed in the concession agreement due to strong public opposition and/or regulatory, legislative or judicial intervention, government is obliged to pay the private operator its expected revenues from such fare level. Government, of course, will be using public money. In other words, the public will not escape the greed of the private operator – whether as LRT 1 commuters (who will shoulder the fare hike) or as taxpayers (who will bear the top-up subsidy). Needless to say, prospective LRT 1 operators that include San Miguel Corp. Infra Resources, Inc.; Light Rail Manila Consortium of Manny V. Pangilinan and the Ayala group; DMCI Holdings, Inc. of the Consunji group; and the foreign consortium MTD-Samsung of Malaysia and South Korea are pleased with the deal that they will be competing to secure from the Aquino administration.

Regulatory risk guarantee

The top-up subsidy in LRT 1 privatization is a form of regulatory risk guarantee that the administration’s economic managers first disclosed in September 2010. The announcement was made ahead of the President’s working visit to the US where he promoted his PPP program to American investors. Two months later, Aquino officially declared the scheme as policy during the PPP Summit, which the government organized to jumpstart its privatization initiatives. In his speech, the Chief Executive said:

“The government will provide investors with protection against regulatory risk. Infrastructure can only be paid for from user fees or taxes. When government commits to allow investors to earn their return from user fees, it is important that that commitment be reliable and enforceable. And if private investors are impeded from collecting contractually agreed fees – by regulators, courts, or the legislature – then our government will use its own resources to ensure that they are kept whole.”

While providing profit guarantees is standard practice in privatization, the regulatory risk guarantee is unique to the Aquino administration. His economic managers designed the scheme so as to avoid criticisms that he is repeating the same disadvantageous perks given to PPP investors in the past that caused the financial bleeding of government such as in the case of Napocor and MRT. But the top-up subsidy or regulatory risk guarantee is essentially the same as the take-or-pay provisions in previous PPP deals. Government and the end-users will still assume all the risks associated with operating the infrastructure while the profits of the private operator are secured.

More public debts

Where will government get the funds for the LRT 1’s top-up subsidy? To be sure, it will not come from disposable funds or public savings as the national budget deficit is still huge at P127.3 billion while the national government remains heavily indebted with more than P5.38 trillion in outstanding debt as of November 2012.

Like his predecessors, Aquino will borrow more to finance his PPP program including the profit guarantee for participating private corporations.  The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) had earlier announced that government will tap multilateral institutions to provide for the guarantees so that when PPP investors face risk, they can still “be paid fast and immediately”. One of the multilateral lenders that made a pledge to fund the government guarantees on PPP projects was the World Bank which issued the commitment during the 2010 PPP Summit. Incidentally, the World Bank through its investment arm International Finance Corp. (IFC) is the transaction advisor of the DOTC and LRTA in the LRT 1 privatization.

Undermining check and balance

Aside from the direct financial burden that will hit the people, the regulatory risk guarantee will also further undermine the already weak system of supposed check and balance through the use of regulatory authorities, courts or Congress as a venue to protect public interest. For example, to prevent the implementation of an LRT fare hike, the people may seek relief from the Supreme Court (SC) through a temporary restraining order (TRO). The DOTC and LRTA would then be prevented from implementing the fare increase. However, the private LRT 1 operator could still collect the revenues from the fare hike through government-guaranteed Deficit Payments thus effectively negating the intervention of the High Court.

The regulatory risk guarantee was designed precisely to protect the commercial interests of the private business undertaking PPP projects from such outside intervention. Economic managers behind the regulatory risk guarantee have cited the case of the South Luzon Tollway Corp. (SLTC), the private operator of the South Luzon Expressway (Slex), which the SC stopped in August 2010 from implementing a more than 250% toll hike already approved by the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB).  Bayan Muna party-list congressman Teddy Casiño also filed a House resolution seeking for a suspension of the toll increase pending a legislative inquiry.

In reality, while DOTC officials try to differentiate the LRT 1 privatization’s top-up subsidy from the controversial guaranteed ROI present in earlier PPP projects, it appears that the former is even more favorable to the private concessionaire (and therefore more disadvantageous to the public) than the latter. The 250% Slex toll hike, for instance, arose from the guaranteed 17% ROI for SLTC contained in its 2006 Supplemental Toll Operation Agreement (STOA) with the TRB. But such guaranteed ROI became meaningless when the SC issued its TRO (although eventually lifted after more than two months). With the top-up subsidy, such risk of fewer profits due to an SC TRO or any outside intervention is eliminated.

More profits through commercial development

On top of its revenues and profits from fares and guaranteed periodic fare hikes, the winning LRT 1 bidder will also enjoy additional cash flows from project land and commercial development as contained in the draft agreement’s Section 11.4. In Section 20.7.a on Commercial Revenue, the deal further stipulates that “The Concessionaire shall be entitled to make arrangements for and charge for and collect the Commercial Revenue generated from the Project subject to Relevant Rules and Procedures.”

The development and lease of commercial spaces on LRT 1 stations and depot as well as revenues from advertising could be a potential source of income for government that could be maximized instead of resorting to steep fare hikes and/or privatization. The country’s LRT and MRT system has very low non-rail revenues which include earnings from commercial development and advertising. According to a 2007 study by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) cited by Senator Francis Escudero, the non-rail revenues of the LRT is equivalent to a paltry 2.6% of total revenues while neighboring countries get more than 20% from advertising and commercial leases. Clearly, there is much room to generate more revenues from commercial development for government if it will retain the LRT 1. Unfortunately, such potential source of income will also be transferred to a private business under privatization.

No need for privatization

The Philippines is among the first Third World countries to implement massive privatization of infrastructure development and operation. Early efforts were set off by conditionalities attached to loans from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the 1980s and 1990s. Among the big-ticket items already privatized are the Napocor assets, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the MRT, super highways like Slex, etc. Through the years, the people have been subjected to soaring and exorbitant user fees charged by the private concessionaires. Meanwhile government debt and deficit continued to balloon ironically due to, among others, privatization deals that were pursued supposedly to ease the fiscal pressure on public coffers.

Unfortunately, the Aquino administration’s PPP program will continue the long discredited and proven flawed policy of privatization such as its ongoing efforts to privatize LRT 1. Government could not even find a compelling justification to push for LRT 1 privatization. Unlike the heavily indebted Napocor and MWSS, for example, the LRTA – government operator of the LRT system – is at least generating enough revenues to finance its operation and maintenance (O&M) requirements. In 2012, the LRT 1’s gross revenues even increased by almost 10% while its farebox ratio – the proportion of fare revenues to total O&M expenses – improved from 1.10 in 2011 to 1.31 last year.  A farebox ratio of 1.0 means that fare revenues can cover 100% of O&M costs. Certainly, improving, modernizing and extending the system to Bacoor, Cavite would require additional investments and this is where the national government should step in by generating the needed funds.

Aquino could not argue that the government does not have the finances to make such investment thus the need for privatization. But if government is willing to incur more debts and guarantee the profits of whoever will win the LRT 1 project, why can’t it make the necessary investments such as through bilateral loans under concessional terms? When Malacañang was insisting on increasing the fares for LRT and MRT, its core argument was that government could no longer supposedly subsidize the system. Yet it is willing to subsidize the profits of the LRT 1 operator?

LRT 1 as a mode of mass transportation is a public investment imbued with public interest. It was never designed and intended to squeeze profits from commuters but to provide a reliable, efficient and affordable system of transportation for workers and employees, students, the self-employed, etc. Its true measure of viability is the social gains it creates for the people and the economy and not the private profits for the Ayalas and the Pangilinans, the Angs and the Cojuangcos, and their foreign partners. There’s no need to privatize it. (End)

“Growth” for big business, at the people’s expense

The Ayala and Pangilinan groups team up in a bid to bag the ₱60-billion LRT 1 privatization project, so far the biggest PPP initiative of the Aquino administration. San Miguel Corp. of presidential uncle Danding Cojuangco is also bidding for the contract. These groups, which enjoy close ties with Aquino, have made a fortune by cornering privatization deals that burden the people with high user fees. (Photo from www.ppp.gov.ph)

Read first part

Structural issues

With the rapid and steady decline of the domestic labor market, labor export has further intensified under Aquino who deploys an average of 1.58 million OFWs a year, a significant jump from the 1 million during Arroyo’s term. If you stretch the comparison to the 1980s, the country is exporting about 3-4 times more OFWs today. In addition, OFW deployment relative to the number of domestically employed workers has steadily increased through the years – from just 2.9% in 2001 to 4.5% in 2011 – indicating the deepening reliance on labor export of the Philippines.

Their remittances (which for the first time breached the $20-billion mark in 2011 and as of September 2012 is reported at $15.57 billion but expected by the World Bank to reach a new record high of $24 billion for the full year) have been keeping the economy afloat in the past three decades by providing means for domestic consumption and payments for our import-dependent production (trade deficit stood at $6.8 billion as of October) and massive foreign debt (pegged at $61.72 billion as of September, which is also the quick and straight answer to one of the favorite 2012 highlights of the administration – the Philippines supposedly being a creditor nation).

In fact, while exports and FDI inflows have increased this year, OFW remittances, the third largest in the world behind remittances from Chinese and Mexican migrant workers, remained the single largest source of dollars for the economy. In the past 10 years, annual OFW remittances are almost 90 times the size of net FDI while the trade balance, as in previous decades, remained perennially in the red, meaning that the neocolonial import-export sector continues to take out invaluable resources from the country, while others in the region like Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore are posting trade surplus of between $25 to $43 billion. Like neocolonial trade, labor export actually takes away more from the economy than the remittances it brings as highly-skilled and trained Filipino workers render their productivity to foreign economies instead of ours. The social costs of labor export such as disintegrating families, issues left unmeasured by statistics, should not be ignored as well.

While actually symptomatic of the permanent and structural crisis that forever besets the Philippines, labor export and remittances drive “growth” as measured by the GDP. This is perhaps one of the biggest anomalies of our maldevelopment. The surprising third quarter expansion, for instance, was mainly driven among others by the 24.3% growth in construction gross value-added (GVA) and 24.8% growth in construction expenditure as record-breaking inflows of remittances fuel demand for residential property. The so-called real estate boom is also being pushed by the BPO sector that according to industry insiders has been driving up demand for new office space which is expected to hit a record 400,000 to half a million square meters this year, or an increase of as much as 25% from 2011.

Like labor export, growth stimulated by BPO is an aberration because its predominance in economic production is actually indicative of the country’s continuing failure to develop and industrialize. Both are the results of the domestic economy’s longstanding structural inability to generate sustainable and productive jobs from vibrant local industries including the manufacture of consumer and industrial goods and modernized agriculture. Without a national industrialization plan, we are forced to rely on what the US and other rich countries require us to do for their advanced economies, whether as production workers in their global assembly lines and factories or as call center agents to service the various needs of their clients. Certainly, they do create some (low-paying, insecure) jobs but just enough to meet their needs while the jobs generated are totally detached from our own development needs.

Furthermore, the so-called resilience amid the global crisis is not because the economy is internally-driven by sustainable, job-generating domestic industries but because our main drivers of growth – BPO and labor export – are precisely useful cost-cutting schemes for the crisis-hit economies of the First World to cope with the economic crunch. In other words, we may continue to “grow” amid the global crisis, but at the great expense of our workers who will be forced to accept further exploitative arrangements in the form of more depressed wages and lack of social protection whether as an irregular call center agent here or an undocumented migrant worker in the US.

At our expense

“Growth” indeed has been at our expense. Not only is the supposed growth not creating enough jobs, it is also being pushed by skyrocketing costs of basic needs and vital economic services. At current prices, electricity, gas and water grew the second fastest in the third quarter among all major industries, just behind construction as the year as usual saw the regular rate increases in privatized electricity and water. While this meant additional burden for the public, it meant more profits for the private corporations that control them.

The nine-month profits of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), for instance, increased by 7.9% to ₱12.89 billion, which the company expects to hit ₱16 billion for the full-year. Similarly, In the first nine months of 2012, Maynilad Water Services Inc. has amassed more than ₱5 billion in profits (13% higher than last year) while Manila Water Co. has raked in ₱3.9 billion in profits (26% higher than last year). Due to the never-ending surges in user fees, Manila already has the most expensive electricity rates and the fifth most expensive water rates among major Asian cities.

These utilities are controlled by the country’s richest clans and individuals who are closely associated with Aquino such as presidential uncle Danding Cojuangco and political supporters Manny Pangilinan and the Ayala family. Aside from electricity and water utilities, they also control other key infrastructure such as toll roads, telecoms and power generation. Together with other close Aquino allies like the Lopezes, Aboitizes and Consunjis, among others, these groups have positioned themselves to further expand their business empire through Aquino’s PPP scheme.

The Ayalas have already bagged the ₱1.96-billion Daang Hari – Slex Link Road project earlier this year; Pangilinan/Ayalas, Cojuangco’s San Miguel Corp. and the Consunjis are all vying for the ₱60-billion LRT 1 extension and privatization project, which is also tied to government’s adamant plan to raise LRT/MRT fares by next year; even hospitals are not spared such as the ₱5.6-billion privatization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center which Pangilinan is eyeing to add to his growing list of hospitals.

The much ballyhooed credit rating upgrades are also being achieved at the people’s expense. Credit rating agencies cite the fiscal reforms being undertaken by Aquino that tame the national budget deficit. This includes, among others, raising government fees and imposing new charges through Administrative Order (AO) No. 31 and imposing more taxes like the newly-signed Sin Tax Law to generate additional revenues. Most of these revenues, however, will go to debt servicing as Aquino needs to gain favorable reviews from creditors and credit rating agencies.

Since Aquino took over up to September this year, government has already shelled out ₱1.59 trillion for debt servicing, equivalent to 70.2% of total revenues and 53.3% of total expenditures plus principal amortization. For comparison, debt servicing under Arroyo was equivalent to 65.8% of revenues and 41.5% of expenditures. These belie claims that the national budget under the Aquino administration is now being redirected towards social services to empower and benefit the poor. The expenditure program from 2011 to the recently signed ₱2-trillion 2013 national budget shows that the budget for debt servicing (including principal amortization) is equivalent to an average of 2.5 times that of the budget for education; 6.4 times, health; and 11.2 times, housing.

For elite interests

While the Aquino administration is harping on good governance as being behind the supposed drastic economic turnaround, much of the so-called reforms it is undertaking – with substantial backing from the US government and multilateral institutions like the World Bank – have been more about protecting elite and big business interests and less about curbing big-time systemic corruption or democratizing government. The reforms are all about creating a more conducive atmosphere for investors, i.e. stable and predictable policy environment, less business risks and reduced costs, etc. to reinforce liberalization, deregulation and privatization. The false assumption is that when business is thriving, the people will ultimately benefit through more jobs and income opportunities and improved living conditions. But clearly, this is not happening as the gains from a supposedly expanding economy have remained monopolized by a handful of big local businessmen and their foreign partners and funders.

On top of promoting the interests of big business, the good governance rhetoric is also being used to advance the agenda of the Aquino clique of the political elite. The successful ouster of Renato Corona as Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice and the appointment of Ma. Lourdes Sereneo, for instance, were more about the consolidation of the political power of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) than making Mrs. Arroyo accountable. Executive hegemony over government branches that formulate policies (Congress) and review the legality of such policies (Judiciary) makes an even more ideal political setting to push for retrogressive economic programs that promote certain big business interests.

In the run-up to the 2013 midterm polls, the LP further heightened their political consolidation under the guise of daang matuwid. Aquino appointed Grace Padaca to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) while LP President and 2016 presidential wannabe Mar Roxas is leading the campaign to unseat non-LP governors in the vote-rich provinces of Cebu and Pangasinan through his powerful post as Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). The LP is obviously laying the groundwork for their prolonged rule and continued imposition of their brand of elite governance and economics beyond the 2016 term of Aquino.

However, contradictions will surely heighten as the crisis gripping the great majority of Filipinos intensifies. The deception of good governance is good economics and the popularity of Aquino will certainly reach their threshold if joblessness, poverty and hunger continued to deteriorate. The significant 12-point drop in Aquino’s latest satisfaction rating despite the scorching speed of GDP growth could be a portent of things to come. ###

PH water rates among Asia’s highest

Because of privatization, don’t be surprised if soon the Philippines will have not just  the most expensive electricity rates in Asia but the most exorbitant water rates as well (Photo from gmanetwork.com)

We already know that power rates in the Philippines are the most expensive in Asia. What we do not know yet which will certainly make our collective blood pressure rise is that water rates in the country are also among the highest in the region. Using the same 2011 survey conducted by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) on power rates in major Asian cities, I found out that the water rates in Cebu City and Manila rank fourth and fifth, respectively behind Sydney, Singapore and Jakarta. Yes, we are paying more expensive water than more developed cities like Hong Kong, New Delhi, Beijing, Seoul and others. (See Chart 1, click on image to enlarge) (Download the JETRO survey here)

I bring this up after hearing the news that the private water concessionaires of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) have been allowed again to jack up their rates next year. A report by the BusinessWorld said that by January 2013, the ordinary customers of Maynilad Water Services Inc. or those with a monthly consumption of 30 cubic meters will see their bill increase by ₱22.52. Meanwhile, the customers of Manila Water Co. Inc. with the same level of monthly consumption will bear a ₱6-spike in their water bill. What a way to greet the New Year for some 13.3 million people in Metro Manila and nearby provinces who get their water from Maynilad and Manila Water.

Prior to these latest increases, Maynilad has already increased its average tariff from ₱4.96 per cubic meter when it first took over the MWSS’s west zone service area in 1997 to ₱32.92 this year. During the same period, Manila Water which services the east zone has hiked its average tariff from ₱2.32 per cubic meter to ₱27.44. This means water rates have already ballooned by 564% to 1,083% since the MWSS was privatized 15 years ago. (See Chart 2, click on image to enlarge)

Like in the case of the power sector, privatization and the numerous anomalous perks granted to corporations are behind the incessant rise in our water bills. The concession agreement between the MWSS and the private water concessionaires allows automatic adjustment to protect the profits the Manny V. Pangilinan group (Maynilad) and the Ayala group (Manila Water). In case you did not know, these big business groups with close ties to President Benigno Aquino III do not only control our cellphone networks, roads, electricity, hospitals and soon our LRT and MRT, but also our water.

Anyway, what are some of these automatic adjustments? Take the case of the most recent water rate hike. Maynilad and Manila Water are increasing their basic charge to reflect the movement in the inflation rate as provided under their respective concession agreements with the MWSS. The said agency’s Regulatory Office allowed a 3.2% adjustment in the consumer price index (CPI) to be applied to the private water concessionaires’ current basic charge. What does this mean? It’s a double whammy. Inflation rises because the costs of basic goods and services like food and utilities have gone up. And then water rates will further rise because of higher inflation. Another is the foreign currency differential adjustment (FCDA), which covers fluctuations in the exchange rate and affect the foreign-denominated loans of the concessionaires.

That’s what the water privatization contract stipulates. It doesn’t make sense to us poor consumers but it makes perfect sense for the Pangilinans and the Ayalas. Just look at their soaring profits to see why. In the first nine months of the 2012, Maynilad has amassed more than ₱5 billion in profits (13% higher than last year) while Manila Water has raked in ₱3.9 billion in profits (26% higher than last year).

Meanwhile, the water distribution system in Cebu City which has the fourth most costly rates in Asia is being managed by the Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD). Though not yet privatized, MCWD like the rest of the other 860 water districts nationwide has also been under constant threat of privatization. This was the intention of Senator Edgardo Angara’s Senate Bill (SB) 2997. Fortunately, the proposal has been effectively derailed by the strong campaigning of the Water System Employees’ Response (WATER), a national federation of water district employees. But the bill will certainly be revived after the midterm elections.

In the meantime, the water privateers continue to make inroads through other means. Earlier this year, the provincial government of Cebu has privatized its bulk water system through an agreement with guess who? Manila Water. Manny Pangilinan Manila Water has been on a buying spree of potable water systems around the country. Aside from the MWSS east zone and the Cebu bulk water project, his group it also controls the Boracay Island Water Co., the Laguna Water Co. (servicing the towns of Biñan, Cabuyao and Sta. Rosa) and the Clark Water Corp. in Pampanga.

The bad news is that the buying spree of our potable water systems and even water resources itself by the Pangilinans, the Ayalas, etc. and the consequent soaring user fees and marginalization of the poor will not end any time soon. In fact, the direction is the further expansion and consolidation of wealth and power of these big business groups through more privatization under the public-private partnership (PPP) of Mr. Aquino.

Just recently, the PPP Center announced that the administration’s first PPP water project – the New Centennial Water Source Project – is already in progress. This mega-project costs about ₱25 billion and is seen to provide an additional water source for Metro Manila. Needless to say, a project this big to be undertaken by a profit-oriented consortium will translate to even higher user fees for us under the privatization principle of full-cost recovery. Government has lined up a total of 14 PPP projects that could affect our access to water including four multi-purpose projects or the construction of dams for hydropower, irrigation and domestic water uses which cost some ₱50.75 billion; three hydropower projects, ₱39.24 billion; and three projects for potable water; ₱26.47 billion. The costs of the four other PPP projects have yet to be determined. (See Table at the end of this article)

These are big-ticket items that will surely provide a bottomless well of profits for those who will bag them, which are most likely the same elite families and their foreign funders and partners that have been taking advantage of past privatization projects and Aquino’s current PPP program. For us, it simply means even further exploitation and marginalization as most of us will find it increasingly harder to afford our basic human right to water for domestic use, for our livelihood and decent living.

Don’t be surprised if soon we will have not just the most expensive electricity rates in the region but the most exorbitant water rates as well. ###

Click on table to enlarge

Sona and high prices

Issues that matter to ordinary folks such as how Meralco and other big companies owned by Aquino’s super-rich relatives and friends are oppressing the people with skyrocketing fees were left unarticulated in the Sona (Photo from Pinoy Weekly)

The third State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III lasted 1 hour and 39 minutes. It was his longest Sona so far. But the 8,890-word speech never made reference to the perennial problem of consumers – the ever rising costs of electricity, petroleum, water and other basic goods and services. In fact, the issue of high prices and what his administration plans to do to address it has never been a topic in Aquino’s annual Sona.

Read the full transcript of Sona here and the English translation here

The non-mention of the problem of high prices was made more conspicuous by the almost simultaneous increases in electricity rates, water rates and oil prices just days before the Sona. The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s largest power distributor, hiked its distribution charge by 29.1 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and its generation charge by 32 centavos; private water concessionaires Manila Water Co. and Maynilad Water Services Inc. increased their rates by 39 centavos and 89 centavos per cubic meter, respectively. Oil companies, meanwhile, have increased the pump price of unleaded gasoline by ₱4.35 per liter and diesel by ₱3.10 after three straight weeks of price hikes this month, including the latest round hours after Sona.

Costs have been unjustly increasing since long ago due to programs initiated by Aquino’s predecessors, namely the deregulation of the oil industry in 1996-1998 and the privatization of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) in 1997 under former Pres. Fidel Ramos, and the privatization of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) in 2001 under Mrs. Gloria Arroyo.

However, Aquino is still accountable for continuing these programs and not even bothering to at least review them despite their harmful impact on consumers. In fact, the President even made these programs the centerpiece of his development plan such as the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.

And if you were wondering why the triple whammy of power, water and oil price hikes did not merit even a single sentence in Aquino’s Sona, or why addressing the issue of high prices has never been an agenda of the President, for that matter, this previous post might help enlighten you.

Indeed, the families running the country’s largest utilities and burdening the consumers with exorbitant prices are among the closest allies and long-time cronies of the Aquino clan. Petron, the biggest oil firm in the Philippines, is majority-owned by San Miguel Corp. (SMC) of Aquino’s maternal uncle Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. while the Ayalas are connected with Pilipinas Shell; Meralco is controlled by SMC, the Lopezes and Manny V. Pangilinan’s group; and Manila Water is controlled by the Ayalas while Maynilad is co-owned by Pangilinan and the Consunjis.

Aquino’s longest Sona yet mentioned many indicators to highlight the supposedly improving economy such as credit rating upgrade, stock exchange performance, and growth in the gross domestic product (GDP), among others. But these indicators are not only abstract for the ordinary folks; they also do not mean increased economic opportunities. They are, however, indicators of how big business is enjoying a favorable environment under Aquino, reaping whatever little wealth is being squeezed from the pre-industrial economy.

Meanwhile, the issues that matter to us such as how Meralco, Petron, Shell Maynilad, Manila Water and other big companies owned by Aquino’s super-rich relatives and friends are oppressing us with skyrocketing prices and rates were left unarticulated by the landlord President.

Sona 2012: How the rich is getting (scandalously) richer under Aquino

Among the major commitments he made in his so-called Social Contract, creating favorable conditions for private business is the only promise that Aquino has been fulfilling (Photo from The Philippine Star)

Part II: Reviewing Aquino’s “Social Contract” and performance

Read Part I: On job creation here

In 2009, the Forbes magazine reported that the 40 richest Filipinos had a combined wealth of $22.4 billion. Last year, the amount more than doubled to $47.43 billion, amid deteriorating poverty and joblessness. What explains such rapid accumulation of wealth? The short and simple answer is that government, including the incumbent Aquino administration, has been creating the most favorable policy environment for big business.

Indeed, Aquino’s apathy to the working class is matched only by his concern for big business. In fact, among the major commitments he made in his so-called Social Contract, creating favorable conditions for private business is the only promise that Aquino has been fulfilling.

In particular, the administration is creating a conducive environment and providing more profit-making opportunities for big business through further privatization of infrastructure, utilities, social services and other vital sectors, or what is called public-private partnership (PPP). Aquino has also aggressively promoted extractive industries including foreign-dominated, export-oriented mining and oil and gas exploration that create social, development and ecological issues.

Privatization and plunder

He has been calling it “daang matuwid” but Aquino’s good governance campaign is more about instituting reforms to reduce business costs and risks than going after big-time plunderers like Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. His campaign to oust Renato Corona as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (SC) was less about his supposed reform agenda but more about consolidating his control over the entire bureaucracy.

Executive hegemony over government branches that make policies (Congress) and review the legality of such policies (Judiciary) creates an even more favorable political environment to push for retrogressive economic programs that favor certain big local businesses and their foreign partners. They include those who are closely associated with the Cojuangco-Aquino clan and are taking advantage of government’s centerpiece program, the PPP, as well as new contracts in mining and oil and gas exploration, among others.

These big business interests are the same companies that have been expanding their economic empire by taking over, through PPP deals, infrastructure development in energy, telecommunications, transport, and water and storage in the past almost three decades. They include the Ayala family ($10.2 billion in investment commitments from 1984 to 2009); Lopez ($7.1 billion); Pangilinan ($5.3 billion); Razon ($3.2 billion); Aboitiz ($2.8 billion); Ang/Cojuangco of SMC ($2.6 billion); and Consunji ($1.1 billion).

Expectedly, they are the same families that are bagging PPP contracts under the current regime. The Ayalas and its Spanish partner, for instance, cornered the ₱1.9-billion Daang Hari – SLEx link road project. Meanwhile, the Ayala family is also competing with the Ang/Cojuangco group, Pangilinan and Consunji and their respective foreign partners for the ₱60-billion LRT Line 1 extension project. PPP projects oppress the poor not only through higher user fees. To give way to PPP projects, tens of thousands of urban poor families are also being displaced from their communities. (More on this in the next article)

Aside from infrastructure and utilities, another major source of massive profits for the local elite and foreign corporations is the wanton extraction and exploitation of the country’s natural wealth; in particular the vast domestic reserves of mineral and energy resources. Three of Aquino’s closest businessmen-allies are already dominating the energy sector with power firms associated with Cojuangco, Aboitiz and Lopez controlling more than half of the national generating capacity.

For sure, these families were able to increase their power portfolio even before Aquino became President. But under Aquino, they are enjoying even more opportunities for expansion as government implements the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) of 2001 even more aggressively. Aquino has made a strong pitch to fully implement the Epira in Mindanao, where Cojuangco and Aboitiz have pending coal-fired power plant projects and where private power operators are eyeing the privatization of the Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex.

Meanwhile, it is estimated that some 24% of approved mining applications have been clinched in the first two years of the Aquino administration. As such, it’s not a coincidence that Cojuangco’s SMC has been on a buying spree of mining firms in the past two years.

In 2011, it bought 10.1% stake in Australian firm Indophil Resources NL which owns 37.5% of Sagittarius Mines Inc. (the rest owned by Swiss firm Xstrata Copper), the operator of the estimated $5.9-billion Tampakan copper-gold project in South Cotabato – one of the world’s largest undeveloped sites. In 2010, SMC bought three coal mines in South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat previously owned by Daguma Agro Minerals, Inc., Bonanza Energy Resources, Inc. and Sultan Energy Mining and Development Corp.

But mining, while profitable, is also contentious and invites strong opposition from various sectors. Consistent with the deception of daang matuwid, Aquino recently issued Executive Order (EO) No. 79, which supposedly attends to concerns on environmental degradation and negligible economic benefits from mining.

While the EO imposes a mining ban on 78 areas designated as ecotourism sites (including Palawan, apparently to appease Gina Lopez and co.) and a moratorium on new mining deals until Congress passes a new law that will increase government’s mining revenues, it will not stop controversial and greatly destructive mining projects such as SMC’s Tampakan. More significantly, Aquino does not intend to reorient the industry and reverse its liberalization the Mining Act of 1995.

Land (un)reform

In his Social Contract, Aquino also promised to recognize farms and rural enterprises as vital to achieving food security and more equitable economic growth. In his PDP, he identified food security and increased rural incomes as among the major goals of government. Also, for agriculture to fulfill its role in reducing rural poverty and achieve food security in the long term, increased incomes, productivity and production shall be enhanced, according to the PDP.

While government boasts of improving rice and food production, even claiming that the country may become self-sufficient in rice by next year, agriculture officials also admit that domestic agriculture remains very dependent favorable weather. But what make domestic food production especially vulnerable to adverse weather events are the accumulated effects of decades of neoliberal restructuring such as trade liberalization, land use conversion, promotion of export crops, etc. which aggravate the basic problems of backward agricultural system (one report said Philippine agriculture is among the least mechanized in Southeast Asia) and landlessness among the direct food producers.

Alas, Aquino is not reversing these neoliberal policies much less implement genuine land reform. The dismantling of large haciendas for land distribution is not in Aquino’s agenda, which of course is not unexpected for someone who comes from one of the wealthiest and most influential landlord clans in the country. Last year, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) was able to distribute just 113,196 hectares out of the already small target of 200,000 hectares, or an accomplishment rate of below 57 percent.

DAR data also show that since taking over as President in July 2010, Aquino’s land acquisition and distribution (LAD) has averaged below 18,000 hectares a month – the second lowest among all post-Edsa administrations. As of yearend 2011, government still needs to acquire and distribute almost 962,000 hectares of land, which at its current LAD rate will be accomplished two to three years after the 2014 deadline set by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper).

Such lackluster performance in LAD is indicative of how the landlord President is indifferent to the plight of landless farmers. The Aquino family’s Hacienda Luisita remains a contentious target for land distribution despite the Supreme Court (SC) ruling, which revoked the stock distribution option (SDO) and ordered the transfer of the sprawling sugar estate to the direct control of farmers and farmworkers.

Taking advantage of the basic flaws of Carper, the President himself is pushing for so-called “just compensation” that his family calculates at a staggering ₱10 billion – a further insult to the poor farmers who are the real owners of the hacienda.

Instead of land reform and consistent with its bias for big corporations, the Aquino administration has been promoting projects that result in further displacement of farmers such as the case of almost 700,000 hectares of agricultural lands that foreign firms from the US, Europe, Middle East and others control (or will control) through agribusiness deals. And as mentioned, the PPP and mining projects that also grab lands away from tillers.

Genuine land reform is indispensable if Aquino truly wants to increase rural income and reduce rural poverty like he stated in his Social Contract and PDP. As shown in previous studies, dismantling the land monopoly will generate an enormous amount of income and free up huge resources, in the process reducing poverty in the countryside where two out of three poor Filipinos live.

Part III: Aquino’s failure to ease poverty and provide social services

ADB: Anti-Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is holding its 45^th annual meeting from May 2 to 5 in Manila. Some 4,000 delegates including finance ministers and central bank governors from ADB’s member-countries; as well as representatives of big business, international financial institutions (IFIs), transnational banks, credit rating agencies, global media, and even so-called civil society are attending the said event. With the theme “inclusive growth through better governance and partnerships”, the event will mark the 15^th time that the ADB has held its annual meeting in Manila. Venues have been arranged at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

The ADB was founded in 1966 and now has 67 members. It’s one of the global financial institutions set up by the industrial powers to fund their programs and projects in backward countries. Together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other IFIs, the ADB bankrolled numerous restructuring efforts that aim to liberalize, deregulate and privatize the economies of many countries in the Asia Pacific. These reforms have been implemented through huge and burdensome debts. The Philippines is a founding member of the ADB and has been hosting the bank’s main headquarters since its inception.

ADB’s 45^th meeting is an opportune time for the Filipino people to register its strongest condemnation of the multilateral bank that has been funding numerous anti-poor economic reforms and destructive projects in the country.

Neoliberal offensive in energy

In the Philippines, ADB’s disastrous impact is most felt in the energy sector through the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira) and the neoliberal reforms implemented in the sector in the past two decades. The ADB started funding the power sector reforms through loans and equity investments to independent power producers (IPPs) as well as guarantees for bonds issued by the National Power Corp. (Napocor). Due to sweetheart deals with the IPPs, Napocor further went deeper in debt, which the ADB used to justify its total privatization.

As Napocor’s largest creditor, the ADB aggressively pressured the national government to fully privatize the state-owned power firm and enact the Epira. In 1994, it funded a study that eventually became the basis of the then Ramos administration’s blueprint for power sector restructuring. This blueprint took the form of an Omnibus Power Bill that was filed in 1996 that aimed to privatize Napocor and restructure the power industry. The Omnibus Power Bill would later become the Epira, a process that was bankrolled by the ADB’s $300-million 1998 Power Sector Restructuring Program (PSRP). To access the loan, the ADB listed 61 specific conditionalities that the government should follow, including designing content and legislation of the Epira.

Even Epira’s actual implementation is being funded by the ADB. Since 2002, the ADB has approved an estimated $1.3 billion in loans to support the various programs and projects under Epira. These include debts to guarantee the bond issuance and improve the creditworthiness of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm), which Epira put up to oversee the privatization of Napocor, and establish the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM).

Under Epira, electricity bills have soared amid energy insecurity such as the case in Mindanao. According to one study, the power rates for residential users in Manila and Cebu are the first and third most expensive in Asia, respectively. Even the supposedly “cheap” electricity rates in Mindanao are still much more expensive than the rates in more progressive Asian cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. Since Epira was implemented, the rates of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) have jumped by 112% while the rates of the Napocor have increased by 95 percent.

Meanwhile, the lack of energy security is the result of government’s abandonment of its mandate to invest in the rehabilitation of existing plants and construction of new ones. Instead of ensuring that there is enough energy supply consistent with a long-term industrialization plan, government used its time and resources to dispose the generation and transmission assets of Napocor as mandated by Epira.

Anti-poor reforms

Aside from the neoliberal restructuring of the power sector, the ADB has also aggressively promoted various privatization and commercialization initiatives including in water utilities, irrigation, dam, and the National Food Authority (NFA), among others. These reforms have resulted in food insecurity and in skyrocketing cost of living.

Privatization is one of the major programs of the ADB in the Philippines, including the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative of the Aquino administration. ADB is the main funder of the Project Development and Monitoring Facility (PDMF), which is government’s revolving fund for feasibility studies for projects under the PPP scheme. The ADB has already committed $21 million for the PDMF.

Furthermore, the ADB also bankrolled a 1993-1994 study that became the basis of the destructive Mining Act of 1995. This program, which liberalized the Philippine mining industry, has paved the way for the further wanton plunder of the country’s mineral resources, the destruction of the environment, and dislocation of communities.

Oppressive debt

Worse, these anti-development and anti-poor programs have been funded by onerous ADB loans. The ADB is now the country’s single largest foreign creditor. As of 2011, the country owes the ADB around $5.84 billion, which is almost 10% of the total foreign debt of the Philippines pegged at $16.71 billion. Among the multilateral creditors, the ADB accounts for more than 50% of the country’s total multilateral debt. All in all, the country has accumulated the fifth largest debt from the ADB, accounting for about 8% of total sovereign lending.

Due to automatic debt servicing, a huge portion of the national budget is being siphoned off by debt servicing, leaving almost nothing for social services. For 2012, for instance, the Aquino administration is ready to spend P738.6 billion for debt servicing, including interest payments and principal amortization. This is much bigger than the P575.8 billion that government is willing to spend for education, social security, health services, housing, land reform, and other social services.

To smokescreen the harsh effects of the neoliberal reforms that it has been sponsoring and the lack of resources for social services due to debt servicing, the ADB – together with the World Bank – is also funding the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program of the Aquino administration. Under the CCT, government provides direct cash assistance of as much as P1,400 to selected poor families on the condition that pregnant mothers will have their regular checkup and school age children will regularly go to class. But aside from being highly temporary and limited, the CCT also further deepens the indebtedness of the Philippines. The ADB is funding the CCT to the tune of $400 million in loans while the World Bank is also lending $405 million for the program.

Strong protest

ADB’s theme of inclusive growth for its meeting this year reflects the main theme of the host government’s Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011-2016. Under the PDP, inclusive growth is supposed to be achieved by expanding the domestic economy by 7-8%, which will generate jobs and livelihood and alleviate poverty. But Aquino’s inclusive growth means the implementation of the same policies and programs of liberalization, deregulation and privatization that the ADB – together with the IMF, World Bank and other global imperialist institutions – has long been imposing on the country.

We should not let the ADB meeting pass without registering our strong opposition to its decades of intervention in Philippine policy making and to the many programs that it has bankrolled through odious debts that perpetuate the backwardness of our economy and the poverty of our people. (end)

Mindanao power is more expensive than Asia’s major cities

Mindanao power is more expensive than electricity rates in major cities in Asia but Aquino wants the region to pay more to supposedly address its power crisis (Photo from manilastandardtoday.com)

Mindanao must pay more to end the rotating brownouts, the President declared in his Power Summit speech. The region, said Aquino, needs more power supply but “cheap” power rates are discouraging private investors from building new power plants to meet Mindanao’s growing energy needs.

Pay more

“But how can you entice anyone to invest—and this is the question—if their generating cost is more than their selling cost?” Aquino, in his speech, asked. “The simple truth is: we can have a lot more energy, but we have to provide the incentives for businesses to come here to put up those plants. Therefore, there will be a change in what we have to pay. We will have to pay, perhaps, a bit more… You have to pay more because this is the reality of economics… Everything has its price. We have to pay a real price for a real service. There are actually just only two choices: pay a little more for energy, or live with the lack of energy and the continuation of the rotating brownouts.”

Cheap rates?

Aquino must apologize to the people of Mindanao for blaming them for the power crisis and accusing them of being spoiled by “cheap” power rates. Aquino must apologize for being shamelessly insensitive to the plight of Mindanao where 36% of the country’s poorest families live (based on the latest official poverty statistics released by the National Statistical Coordination Board or NSCB).

The premise that Mindanao has been unjustifiably enjoying “cheap” power rates is totally wrong. True, Mindanao has lower power rates than Luzon and Visayas. Latest available comparative data show that the region has an effective residential rate of P6.69 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Luzon has P9.84 while Visayas has P8.19. (Data from 18^th EPIRA Implementation Status Report, which may be downloaded here)

Most expensive in Asia

Aquino, however, did not mention one very important fact. Mindanao power is “cheap” only because the country has the highest electricity rates in Asia. In a survey conducted by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), Manila posted the most expensive residential rate (P10.16 per kWh), while Cebu (P8.39) is ranked third (Singapore ranked second with P8.83). JETRO conducted the survey in January 2011 to compare investment-related costs, including electricity, in 31 major cities in Asia and Oceania. (See the table at the end of this article for the complete list; Download the JETRO survey here)

While Aquino is blaming the power crisis on the people of Mindanao for being pampered by “cheap” power, Mindanao is actually paying much more than most major cities in Asia. Did you know that residential consumers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Cagayan de Oro City, Northern Mindanao, and the Davao and CARAGA regions are paying twice the electricity rates of residents in Seoul and Beijing? Except for CARAGA, all the Mindanao regions I mentioned also have more expensive residential power rates than Hong Kong. These areas in Mindanao, plus Cotabato City, Iligan City, SOCCKSARGEN, and the Zamboanga Peninsula all have higher residential rates than major Asian capitals like Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, New Delhi, Bangkok, and Shanghai, among others. All in all, Mindanao is paying an average of P1.82 per kWh more for electricity than the collective average residential rate of the 31 major cities in Asia and Oceania surveyed by JETRO.

I summarized these findings in the chart below, which culled data on residential rates from the JETRO survey and data on average residential rates of private distribution utilities (PDUs) and average systems rates of electric cooperatives (ECs) from the 18^th EPIRA report. The red bars represent Mindanao regions and cities.

Poorest region

Note that Mindanao has an average official poverty incidence of 33.5% of families (the national average is 20.9%). The country’s three poorest regions are in Mindanao – CARAGA (39.8%), ARMM (38.1%), and Zamboanga Peninsula (36.6%). ARMM does not only have the most expensive power rates in Mindanao, it also has (consequently) the highest cost of living (more than P1,287 based on the family living wage released by the NSCB in July 2008) among all regions in the Philippines, while the minimum wage there is just P232 (or just 18% of the cost of living). Amid this condition, the people of Mindanao are being forced to pay for electricity that is way beyond the rates in Asia’s richest cities. Yet Aquino wants Mindanao to shell out more money to supposedly solve its power crisis.

Blame EPIRA

Mindanao has lower rates than Luzon and Visayas not only because it sources its energy supply from cheaper hydropower but also because the region has been relatively and temporarily spared from the privatization and deregulation drive under EPIRA. State-controlled/owned installed capacity in Mindanao is still about 82% of the total (as of 2010 data from the DOE), compared to 18% in Luzon and 36% in Visayas where most power plants have already been privatized and are now controlled by the country’s profit-seeking “power lords”. Furthermore, unlike Luzon and Visayas, Mindanao does not have an EPIRA-created wholesale electricity spot market (WESM), which has only become a venue for price manipulation and speculation by power monopolies, sparking off wild spikes in power rates.

But EPIRA is also to blame for Mindanao’s energy insecurity. While government retained control over most of the installed and dependable capacity in Mindanao, it did not invest in additional capacity to meet the growing power demand of the region. Government abandoned its strategic role to design and implement power development projects consistent with a long-term industrialization plan and instead focused on selling the assets of the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) to private investors as mandated under EPIRA.

Reverse privatization

To fully solve the energy insecurity of Mindanao and the rest of the country as well as the problem of expensive electricity, there is no other recourse but for the state to take over. Aquino could no longer use the excuse that doing so will just further bankrupt the government. Despite the EPIRA, NAPOCOR remains trapped in deep debt (read here). So instead of further wasting limited public resources on a flawed energy program – which only made electricity bills more exorbitant and power supply more insecure – government should start reversing the privatization and deregulation of the energy sector. #

Aquino’s 2012 budget: Diretso sa tubo (Part 2)

Aside from creating more profit-making opportunities for private business through the PPP, the 2012 budget is also focused on creating the most favorable conditions for investors. (Photo from mylot.com)

First published by The Philippine Online Chronicles

Continued from Part 1

To fund his Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives, President Benigno S. Aquino III is proposing in his 2012 budget an amount of P8.6 billion for the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and another P3 billion for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). The said amounts are for the various PPP ventures of the two agencies, including for the preparation of business cases, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies.

Aquino has tasked the DOTC and DPWH to implement his first 12 PPP projects. PPP Center data show that the DOTC is handling eight projects worth P95.3 billion for the privatization and expansion of the light rail transit (LRT) and metro rail transit (MRT) and another P16.7 billion for the privatization and development of airports in Bohol, Albay, Palawan, and Puerto Princesa. On the other hand, the DPWH is in charge of four projects worth more than P44.9 billion for expressway projects in Luzon.

These projects are on top of the numerous other PPP initiatives that will be handled by the DOTC and DPWH under the medium-term plan of the Aquino administration.

Another major recipient of the 2012 PPP support fund is the Department of Agriculture (DA), which will receive P2.5 billion for right of way, infrastructure, and other related support. The DA and its attached agencies are in charge of 16 PPP projects for medium-term rollout worth at least P55.8 billion for irrigation, post-harvest facilities, and agribusiness ventures, among others.

(Download the complete list of Aquino’s PPP projects here)

PPP for social services

But aside from infrastructure development, Aquino is also expanding the use of PPP schemes to the delivery of social services. One is the P3-billion government counterpart funding to rehabilitate, maintain, and operate 25 regional hospitals. Another is the P5-billion fund for school building construction through PPP, wherein the contractor will undertake the financing, design, construction, and maintenance of classrooms and turns them over to the Department of Education (DepEd) after completion.

In his budget message, Aquino also said that the administration is employing the Multi-Year Obligational Authorities (MYOA) to encourage private participation in the
construction, operation, and maintenance of school buildings, health centers, and other basic government infrastructures. MYOA is an authority released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to enable an agency to enter into a multi-year contract for locally-funded or foreign-assisted projects.

The DepEd has been ordered by the President to pursue PPP projects for the construction of elementary and secondary schools (amount still to be determined) “as public funds are not being able to fully cover the needs of an increasing school population”, according to the PPP Center. DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro has also recently bared his agency’s plan to establish privately-run public schools
supposedly to address critical shortages in the public school system.

Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Cesar Purisima, on the other hand, said that the government will be bidding out contracts for the construction of 10,000 school buildings within the year. Purisima said the private contractors will build and maintain the school buildings while the government will pay them over a period of time.

Meanwhile, the DOH will handle 11 PPP projects for medium-term rollout worth at least P7.9 billion, including the construction of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.’s (PhilHealth) building, hospital staff housing facilities, use for commercial operations of hospitals’ unused lands, research facilities and materials, air transport service, commercialization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center, and use of information and communication technology (ICT).

All in all, the 2012 strategic support fund for PPP projects of the DepEd, DOH, DOTC, DPWH, and DA is pegged at P22.1 billion, of which P8 billion are fresh funding for PPPs in education and health.

Budget cuts

While allotting P8 billion and P5 billion in new funding for PPP initiatives in health and education, respectively, the supposedly Diretso sa Tao budget has either frozen or cut the allocation for key items to sufficiently meet the growing public health and education needs.

According to the Coalition for Health Budget Increase (CBHI), for instance, the Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) of five Metro Manila-based special hospitals and 18 local hospitals nationwide have been kept at their 2011 levels. Also, the Personal Services budget of the five special hospitals and of 16 local hospitals nationwide has been reduced.

In addition, the budget for Service Delivery Programs has been cut by almost a billion pesos while the budget for Health Facilities Enhancement Program has been slashed by more than two billion. Also, the subsidy for indigent patients for confinement or use of specialized equipment has been totally scrapped, according to the CBHI. It said that at least P90 billion, or more than P40 billion higher than Aquino’s proposed 2012 allocation, is needed to provide immediate relief to the health needs of the people.

The same thing is true with the education budget. Activist youth group Anakbayan has pointed out that the budget for 50 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) will be slashed by P583 million. Meanwhile, despite the seemingly huge P31.5-billion increase in the DepEd budget, its allocation can only plug 27% of the backlog in classrooms, 19% of the backlog in desks, and 13% of the shortfall in teachers.

Pro-business budget

The country’s experience with PPP in the past three decades has been awful, to say the least. Various PPP initiatives in the power, water, road, and mass transportation sectors, among others, have all resulted in exorbitant user fees and onerous debts all in the name of assuring the profits of private business. The proposed regulatory risk guarantee of Aquino to further entice the private sector in his PPP program will surely worsen the public cost of privatization.

But even more alarming is the greater intrusion of profit-oriented investors in the most basic social services. The costs of running of hospitals and schools will certainly rise as PPP contractors expect not only to recover their investment but also to earn profits, which distorts the nature and role of public schools and hospitals. The increased cost will either be directly passed on to the patients and students through higher user fees or to the general public through the regulatory risk guarantee, or both.

From a fiscal point of view, PPP also does not guarantee that the budgetary woes of the government will be resolved based on the country’s own experience. Similar outcomes are evident in other countries. A recent study, for instance, by the Washington-based group Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found that the US government actually spends more when it hires private contractors to provide services than when the government itself is undertaking such tasks.

Anti-development

Aside from creating more profit-making opportunities for private business through the PPP, the 2012 budget is also focused on creating the most favorable conditions for investors, particularly in those sectors that the administration deems as growth and employment drivers. They include tourism, electronics export, and business process outsourcing (BPO), among others.

P9.2 billion, for example, has been allocated for access roads to tourist destinations on top of airport projects that will also be pursued through PPP. P500 million, meanwhile, has been assigned to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to focus the curricula of SUCs on BPO and tourism as well as agriculture and infrastructure development.

But these priority areas for development have long failed to spur sustained economic growth, much less address the chronic job scarcity and reduce poverty. They fail because they are not anchored on any long-term national industrialization plan that promotes and relies on domestic production and consumption. They have always been driven by what is profitable for foreign investors and what meets the appetite of the global market, specifically of the developed world.

Dole-out for the poor

The only semblance of Diretso sa Tao in the 2012 budget is the P39.5 billion allocated for the controversial Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program. For 2012, the CCT targets 3 million households with a proposed budget of P39.5 billion or P18.3 billion higher than this year’s budget. Aquino aims to cover 4.3 million households by the end of his term.

Such massive expansion in scope and budget is not backed by any thorough assessment on whether the program has actually contributed to sustained poverty reduction, not to mention that it is funded by $805 million in growing foreign debt that has long been debilitating the economy and depriving the poor of much needed social services.

As it is, even the target of 4.3 million households is still just a fraction of the ever growing population crippled by joblessness or lack of livelihood amid ever rising cost of living – social ills that ironically are being aggravated by PPP and other flawed development programs that the 2012 budget supports. Thus, the CCT is simply being used by the Aquino administration to sell his proposed national budget as Diretso sa Tao but at its core is Diretso sa Tubo. #

Power lords

San Miguel Corporation cornered 41.3 percent of privatized generating plants and IPP contracts in terms of capacity (Photo from allvoices.com)

(Continued from Part 2)

The restructuring of the power industry under EPIRA facilitated the creation of new private monopolies that lord over not only the distribution but also the generation of electricity. The dominant position of these monopolies, controlled by billionaires in Forbes’ list of richest Filipinos and their foreign partners, is bound to further intensify under Aquino’s public-private partnership (PPP) program.

Privatized power plants and IPP contracts

Out of the 7,665.88 megawatts (MW) in capacity of privatized generating plants and IPP contracts, Danding Cojuangco’s San Miguel Corporation (SMC) cornered 41.3 percent while the Aboitiz group bagged 28.5 percent. Other major buyers include the Consunjis (7.8 percent) and the Lopezes (7.4 percent). American firm AES Corporation accounted for a significant 7.8 percent. South Korean companies SPC Power and K-Water have a combined 5.8 percent. (It includes the Angat hydropower plant that was put on-hold by the Supreme Court.) Five companies accounted for the remaining 1.4 percent.

The costs of these transactions total $6.69 billion. SMC accounted for 35.9 percent of the said amount; Aboitiz, 30.2 percent; AES Corp., 13.9 percent; K-Water, 6.6 percent; Lopez, 5.7 percent; Consunji, 5.4 percent; and others, 2.3 percent. (See Table 1)

In terms of overall generating capacity, the restructured Philippine power sector is now dominated by just three companies – San Miguel Power Corporation (20 percent), Lopez-owned First Gen Corporation (17 percent), and the Aboitiz group (15 percent).

Government through NAPOCOR and PSALM has 30 percent. (See Chart 4) SMC’s rise as a major player in the power industry is truly phenomenal considering that it has only started venturing in the industry in 2008.

These are the same groups that also control the biggest distribution utilities (DUs) in the country. SMC and the Lopez group, for example, control MERALCO with 27 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively. (Manny Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific controls 45 percent.) MERALCO is the largest DU in the Philippines with a franchise area covering 24.7 million (about 25% of the national population) in 31 cities and 80 municipalities. It serves Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, and Cavite as well as parts of Laguna, Quezon, Batangas, and Pampanga.

The Aboitiz group, on the other hand, controls the second and third largest DUs – the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) and Davao Light and Power Company. VECO serves Metro Cebu covering four cities and four municipalities. Meanwhile, Davao Light serves Davao City and Panabo City as well as three municipalities in Davao del Norte. Aside from these DUs, the Aboitiz group also controls Cotabato Light and Power Company, San Fernando Electric Light and Power Company, and the DUs serving the Subic Freeport zone, Mactan export processing zone, and the West Cebu industrial park.

SM tycoon Henry Sy has taken advantage of the EPIRA as well. His One Taipan Holdings (30 percent), State Grid of China (40 percent), and Calaca High Power Corporation (30 percent) control the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP). NGCP holds a 25-year concession agreement (CA) with government to operate the country’s transmission system beginning in January 2009.

No transparency or competition

Cross-ownership in distribution and generation, which EPIRA allows, makes claims by advocates of neoliberal power restructuring about transparency and competition in pricing an outright lie. EPIRA’s unbundling of rates, for example, is practically meaningless even if a consumer can see in his or her monthly bill how much he is paying for generation and distribution. Market abuse is not prevented even if rates are unbundled due to cross-ownership. This has been clearly illustrated in the operation of the EPIRA-created Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

The WESM, which has been operating in Luzon since 2006, is meant to among others “provide and maintain a fair and level playing field for suppliers and buyers of electricity”. But cross-ownership negates whatever benefits that the WESM is supposed to offer. The intention of the WESM is to make rates more competitive by offering prices other than those set in the bilateral contracts. EPIRA even capped at 50 percent the power requirements that DUs can source from their own generators and the rest they must get from other IPPs and the WESM.

However, the WESM itself is dominated by the same generators that are related with the DUs. IPPs connected with MERALCO, for instance, account for 42.6 percent (SMC with 24.8 percent and Lopez, including Quezon Power, 17.8 percent) of the 11,652-MW capacity registered at the WESM. The Aboitiz group, meanwhile, comprises 13.1 percent. The huge shares of these groups to the WESM-registered capacity make the spot market vulnerable to manipulation and speculation. Case in point was early last year when the price of electricity at the WESM reached an unbelievable P68 per kWh at one point during the height of the El Niño.

The high WESM prices have been blamed by MERALCO for the monthly increases in its generation charge last year. The latest adjustment in MERALCO’s generation charge worth 51 centavos per kWh, announced last Tuesday, is again being blamed at the high increases in the WESM, where rates jumped by P1.89 per kWh. MERALCO IPPs, on the other hand, increased their rates by a smaller 16.2 centavos per kWh.

Energy insecurity

Finally, the country’s energy security has remained precarious under EPIRA. The rotating brownouts experienced in different parts of the country last year is a tell-tale sign that the power crisis has not been resolved by privatization. In Mindanao, for example, the power shortage reached as high as 700 MW in March 2010 that led to rotating brownouts of as long as 8 hours daily. Government quickly blamed the El Nño because Mindanao gets more than half of its power supply from hydroelectric plants.

But apparently, the deeper issue is not drought but government neglect. During the Aquino administration, for instance, Mindanao’s power mix was 75 percent hydro while peak demand was 800 MW, according to a former NAPOCOR president. In 2010, DOE data show that hydro accounted for a relatively smaller 51.8 percent of installed capacity in Mindanao while peak demand was 1,288 MW. Thus, the El Niño could not be solely blamed for the shortage since no significant additional capacity has been put in the region. This should have been the job of government but because of EPIRA, it focused on selling the assets of NAPOCOR instead of installing additional capacity.

Even Luzon was not spared from rotating brownouts during last year’s El Niño. Aggravating the low levels in Luzon’s major dams were the uncoordinated shutdowns implemented by privately controlled power plants. They include SMC generation plants Sual and Limay as well as the Lopez plants that use natural gas from Malampaya. The power supply shortfall reached 641 MW, which could have been easily offset by Luzon’s excess capacity and thus avoid the rotating brownouts. But because EPIRA has dissolved government’s role in ensuring power supply, there is no mechanism in place to fill the gap resulting from plant shutdowns.

Ten years is enough

Its proponents argue that EPIRA must be given a chance to work because once fully implemented, the country will surely reap its promised benefits. They cite the impending implementation of the so-called open access and retail competition. Under this system, power consumers will have the opportunity to choose their suppliers. But then again, the industry has already been monopolized by a few players making the supposed option to choose an illusion.

For its part, the Aquino administration and its allies in Congress have worked for the amendment of EPIRA to extend the so-called lifeline subsidy. But it still does not address the exorbitant and rising electricity rates that Filipino consumers are forced to shoulder. Besides, the subsidy is being paid for by other consumers and does not come from the pocket of MERALCO or government.

Ten years of EPIRA is enough. Its defects could not be corrected by simple cosmetic amendments. It is fundamentally wrong to allow the narrow profit agenda of private companies and banks to take over a sector as strategic as the power industry.

EPIRA has resulted in the doubling of power rates and intensification of private monopolies. At the same time, it failed to address the financial problems of NAPOCOR and the country’s energy security. Only NAPOCOR’s creditors and private local and foreign companies have benefitted from power restructuring. For these reasons, there is a clear and urgent need for our policy makers to seriously rethink the law and work for its repeal. (END)

Read Part 1 – 10 years of EPIRA: what went wrong? and Part 2 - The curious case of NAPOCOR debts

Also read The role of foreign lenders, investment banks, and credit rating agencies in Philippine power sector reform