The state of the nation is one of calamity
SOCIAL media went ballistic the other day after floods paralyzed Metro Manila and adjacent provinces, even forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee their totally flooded homes. Netizens mocked the boast that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made in his State of Nation Address (SONA) just two days before the floods made the metropolis a watery hell:
“More than 1,500 flood-control projects have been finished and more are being built in the entire country.” His boast was belied by the calamitous floods the next day.
One viral post had an image of Marcos when he was delivering his SONA, with the caption: “Iba ang sabi, iba ang gawa.” Political analyst Malou Tiquia posted a question: “Who are the contractors of the GAA (General Appropriations Act) 2023 P244.5 billion and GAA 2024 P300 billion flood control projects?”
Retired general Orlando de Leon angrily posted: “5,500 COMPLETED (sic) flood control projects!!! (sic) Line up all the crocodiles and their contractors on the wall then fire at will.” Indeed, one explanation why the flood-control projects (mostly huge pumping stations) failed is that the contractors for these did lousy jobs, burdened by bribes they had to give to officials.
The huge flooding, brought by Typhoon “Carina,” stopped business activity in the country’s economic and political center, and was an inarguable demonstration that Marcos in his first two years as president had terribly neglected the installation of flood-control mechanisms to mitigate what has been a perennial disaster hitting the country in the monsoon and typhoon seasons of July and August. The rainfall on Wednesday of 586 millimeters (mm), however, wasn’t record-breaking, as it was only half of the 1,973 mm on July 3, 2021, and 100 mm less than the amount the super typhoon delivered 15 years ago. This means nature isn’t entirely to blame: the government’s neglect to install flood-controlling infrastructure was a major factor.
Marcos’ dilly-dallied in declaring a state of calamity and told the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) that each mayor can, on their own, declare a state of calamity in their areas, which they all promptly did in a meeting with the MMDA. Marcos, obviously, didn’t want to be the second president after President Aquino III in 2013 to declare a state of calamity due to floods.
Marcos blamed the floods for Filipinos’ penchant for neglecting the proper disposal of garbage, which he said led to the clogging of the sewerage tunnels designed to flush the floodwaters out of the metropolis.
On the other hand, Senators Juan Miguel Zubiri and Joel Villanueva blamed the reclamation projects in Manila Bay that may have caused the floods, as these may have impeded the disgorging of floodwaters into the bay.
“This, I believe, is the consequence of all the reclamation happening in Manila Bay, wala ng malabasan ng floodwaters dito sa Pasay at Manila. Babaha at babaha na palagi d’yan sa atin tuwing uulan ng malakas,” Zubiri said.
It’s a no-brainer that the world-renowned floods in our political, economic and cultural center is one big disincentive for foreign investments. What foreign executive would want to work and live in a metropolis that gets flooded, even if only in two months of the year? Worse, social media has spread more widely than ever to the world the terrible images of our floods.
If there’s anything the Senate should be investigating and studying, it is our perennial flood problem. They should sacrifice a bit and sell their P23 billion — moving up to P30 billion — extravagant new Senate building and use the funds to add to the costs of having a permanent solution to our flood problem.
Flawed power bidding
The recent joint hearing of two Senate committees on the fate of legislation to secure Philippine energy unmasked several realities that had been hidden in the technicalities of how our power supply is sourced.
First, it became clear that the so-called competitive selection process (CSP) of giant distribution utility Meralco was discriminatory.
Second, the reason that the CSP is discriminatory is the outsized authority that Meralco is allowed to exercise in determining who can take part in the process.
Third, government functionaries who have the power to put CSP in check refuse to take responsibility and instead, resorted to finger-pointing.
Fourth, because of finger-pointing, Meralco can “do what it wants,” as pointed out by the Department of Energy (DoE) during the hearing.
Fifth, the award of a substantial amount of electricity — 1,200 megawatts (MW) — is already fait accompli even as Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, at the hearing, took to task two energy regulatory bodies — the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the DoE — for failing to fully examine the Meralco terms of reference (TOR) for flaws and exacting transparency.
Sixth, the need to halt further CSPs — the next one scheduled for August 2 — for new power supply came out as urgent, as explained by Cayetano, until the rules become clearer and more transparent.
The realities that unfolded at the hearing, for one, led to admission by Meralco that it, indeed, excluded from it CSPs power plants using indigenous gas, particularly for 1,800 MW.
Through technical terms, like “greenfield” which Meralco, the DoE and ERC defined in conflicting ways, the exclusion of plants 10 years or older was cast in stone.
The problem is not that the criterion is age-discriminatory. The problem is that the plants left out are the ones running on local gas, which is lower in cost because of its fixed price and good for the economy because of the billions in revenue that it generates for the government.
The public hearing shed light on the unseen, but huge discrepancies in Meralco’s CSP. Cayetano’s probing questions exposed key issues in the CSP, foremost of which was its arbitrariness and the finger-pointing in the DoE and ERC over flaws found in Meralco’s bidding TOR, mainly the open admission that new CSPs were meant for greenfield plants.
The exchange between Cayetano and Meralco vice president Jose Ronald Valles unmasked the utility’s practice of fending off bids from plants using indigenous, or local, gas as fuel because of the greenfield principle.
But the DoE and the ERC insisted that their definition of greenfield was distorted in the Meralco TOR. They didn’t mean exclusion of plants that use indigenous gas, the two agencies insisted.
Prudence was blown in the air in the already accomplished CSPs for 1,800 MW but, as Cayetano pointed out, it is not too late to rectify the error in future power biddings, especially for 600 MW scheduled on August 2.
“It’s like a volleyball or basketball game. You shouldn’t play it until the rules are clear,” Cayetano said.
Suspending the August 2 bidding isn’t just the right thing to do. It also makes sense, especially now that a new government procurement process is already law after it was recently signed by President Marcos.
The revelations at the Senate hearing depict a complex scenario where Meralco’s claim of heeding the least cost principle is doing more harm than good.
Correction
An alert reader with the email address joseoliveros1947@yahoo.com, emailed me to correct a few statements in my column last week entitled “Bongbong is Nonoy 2.0.” I stand corrected. I hope our historians are as alert as my reader. His message:
“Ninoy Aquino returned from the US in 1983, not in 1981, specifically on Aug. 21, 1983; 1981 was the year he was allowed to leave for the US for medical treatment. Marcos was suffering from a degenerative kidney ailment; not liver ailment.
While Ninoy’s role in the Plaza Miranda bombing was never proven, it is still a subject of speculation why he was not at Plaza Miranda when the Liberal Party meeting started. He was at the despedida de soltera for Susie Laurel, eldest daughter of then-Sen. Doy Laurel, at the Sky Room of the now demolished Jai Alai Building. According to one of the guests, Ninoy was restless, and from time to time was looking at his wristwatch. The Tagalog word used by that guest was “balais,” so obviously, he was a Batangueño.”
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The state of the nation is one of calamity
Source: Breaking News PH
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