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IT is
hoped no one in the Cabinet will invoke “divine
inspiration” when they justify an apparently whimsical
executive order to invite foreign investors with
factories requiring heavy power supply to set up shop
around our cheaper-rated geothermal power plants,
including—oh dear—the one in environmentally sensitive
Mt. Apo.
We raise
this hope because President Arroyo was said to have
signed the still-unnumbered but already- controversial
order in a place conducive to deep reflection—the
“prayer mountain” enclave of the religious group of
Pastor Apollo Quiboloy in Tamayong, north of downtown
Davao.
The
order, signed earlier this week, mandated the creation
of special economic zones around the geothermal plants
in Tiwi, Albay; Palimpinon, Negros Occidental; and the
Philippine National Oil Co.-owned Mt. Geothermal Power
Plant in Barangay Ilomavis,
Kidapawan
City,
in North Cotabato.
Per
official justification, the creation of the zone would
prepare the way for the eventual entry of factories and
other industries that depend a lot for their operations
on reliable and cheap power.
“I have
signed here an important executive order that would
generate investments around the geothermal plant,” Mrs.
Arroyo said in a 15-minute talk show with the
government-run National Broadcasting Network and a
Manila newspaper. She said the EO would direct “all
local government units [LGUs] where the geothermal
plants are to put up their own economic zones.”
The LGUs
around these geothermal plants, she noted, receive
royalties from hosting these plants, but the royalties
can be used only to pay or subsidize their power
consumption. “But in many cases, LGUs have fat bank
accounts because their households consume less power,
and some even subsidize other villages.”
So,
continues the argument, why not subsidize the factories
that complain they pay through the nose for their high
electric consumption by inviting them to operate there?
“They could generate employment for their residents,”
Mrs. Arroyo said.
For one
thing, she noted, the Philippines has so much geothermal
power sources, and has been rated, if we are to believe
Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, the second-highest user
of geothermal power after the United States.
Sounds
simple, so far. Until one gets to the nitty gritty. One
of the first who criticized the scheme, a local
councilor, described the EO as “treasonous” for the
preferential treatment it gives foreigners over local
businesses in accessing cheap and abundant geothermal
power while opening up for environmental abuse the
mountain that is being looked upon as one of the last
frontiers of nature.
Even
with the patriotic issue aside, sheer economic arguments
dim the chances of drawing substantial benefits from
this newfangled scheme that may, at best, result in even
more gouging of other consumers.
Davao
City Councilor Peter Laviña doubted that the declaration
of geothermal sites as “special economic zones” would
attract power-intensive industries, such as electronics,
in southern
Mindanao.
For one
thing, he finds it unthinkable for electronics companies
to locate in Mt. Apo, for instance, because it is far
from any airport or seaport. Note that electronics
processing in the country caters mostly to the exports
market; hence the vital role of location.
Laviña
is not engaging in idle talk. The chairman of the city
council committee on trade, commerce and industry
suggested that instead of making available cheap power
to foreign investors, “the government should instead
provide this to local businesses and consumers.”
Giving
“the preferential treatment for foreign manufacturers in
the case of cheap geothermal power” is, in his view,
“simply treasonous” because it has the effect of turning
“local business and consumers into second-class citizens
in their own country.”
Laviña
also warned that “attracting power-intensive industries
to geothermal sites may run in conflict with
environmental laws in the preservation of lumad culture
and claims on ancestral- domain areas.”
The
councilor also notes that “most power-intensive
industries are pollutants, and most of the geothermal
sites are inside areas occupied by cultural
communities”—and, in the case of Mt. Apo, is the main
watershed cover of Davao City, Davao del Sur and North
Cotabato.
Like
many of the so-called “incentives” and other concessions
dangled to investors, foreign and local, this latest
order seems flawed from the start. Unfortunately the
congenital flaw is in the very premise for giving
incentives—before anything else, investors, especially
those from countries with very strict laws against
corruption and racketeering, even in the overseas
operations of their own nationals, simply demand good
governance. A level playing field. Transparency. Sound
economic arguments.
Does
that sound too complicated and unattainable? Perhaps it
is, in a territory where ill-conceived, unnecessary,
crony-driven projects—especially bankrolled by loans
borne by taxpayers—are making a grand comeback.
No need
to risk imperiling the diverse life in Mt. Apo for this
newfangled scheme. It simply won’t work. |
