Editorials:

Illustration by Jimbo Albano

More light, less heat, please

If the news reports are accurate, President Arroyo will meet with Manuel Lopez, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) chairman and CEO, tomorrow in Bohol amid the raging controversy over high electricity rates.

Earlier, Lopez had indicated in an interview over the family-owned ABS-CBN television network that he had no quarrel with Mrs. Arroyo, and would like to meet with her to discuss electricity rates and explain Meralco’s side in the issue. According to Malacañang, the meeting will take place only if the agenda is how to put a leash on runaway power rates. 

But we doubt if this meeting will immediately result in a substantial decrease in consumers’ electricity bills. 

At the Kapihan sa Sulò news forum on Saturday, Meralco officials explained that distribution charges account for only 12 percent of our electric bill, with power generation by National Power Corp. (Napocor) and independent power producers taking up 58 percent, transmission another 12 percent, system losses 8 percent and taxes and universal charges 10 percent.

In other words, if the intention is to give relief to hard-up electricity consumers, then the cuts should be made across-the-board, not just in the distribution component.

Thus, for instance, the government should consider scrapping the royalties imposed on natural gas sourced from Malampaya-Camago, and, likewise, do away with the value-added tax on system loss.

Asked why consumers are made to pay system loss charges, Meralco said all power-distribution firms charge the same fee, and that this is allowed by law to a certain level.

But why are consumers also charged for the electricity used in Meralco offices? Meralco’s reply: This is part of operating costs, which any business passes on to its customers. 

At the same news forum, Napocor denied allegations it had made overpriced coal purchases.

While the Government Service Insurance System chided Meralco for lack of transparency, it clarified that it had no intention of taking over the power-distribution utility. 

Meantime, the Joint Congressional Power Commission and the House energy committee have held initial hearings on the issue, with administration allies seemingly bent on putting Meralco on the defensive while keeping largely silent on the government’s role in bringing power rates soaring to the second-highest in Asia after Japan. 

Amid the welter of charges and countercharges on the issue, what is needed is a sober and rational discussion. Let’s keep the politicians off this issue, because they generate more heat than light. Consumer welfare should come first and foremost, and the reported meeting between the President and Mr. Lopez, we hope, should be the start of a sincere effort to lower electricity rates, especially for ordinary Filipinos already burdened by high food and fuel prices.    

More agri loans means food security

Talk about lopsided priorities.

If the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) can infuse P20 billion in an ailing commercial bank despite allegations of mismanagement, why can’t it do the same for rural banks and increase lending to farmers that will lead to food security?

Indeed, why not?

House Bill 3827 seeks precisely to change that lopsided situation by temporarily easing regulations on the cash reserves of rural banks.

The agricultural sector comprises a fifth of the country’s economy; and HB 3827 will encourage rural banks to lend more to the sector by using money previously allotted for lenders’ capital.  

Under the measure, authored by An-Waray Party-list Rep. Florencio Noel, rural banks’ capital-adequacy ratios—a measure which allots a certain amount to cover its cash deposits—would be eased for two years.

House Speaker Prospero Nograles has said he wants the bill passed as soon as possible and hopes the Senate will facilitate the process.  “We want to reenergize the marginal operations of rural banks in the countryside because they are in the best position to reach out to the farmers in their areas of operation, and could identify the real needs of the farmers. We have to save our rural banks if we want to achieve food security.”

Noel rails against the BSP’s double standard in assisting financially troubled lenders. While the BSP did not hesitate in bailing out a distressed commercial bank to the tune of P20 billion, he says, the money would have been more than enough “to reenergize similarly situated rural banks all over the country.”

The BSP has already closed down 468 rural banks all over the country for failing to meet their respective capital-adequacy ratio requirement. Apparently, the BSP takes a hard-line approach in regulating rural banks, but it seems to have been excessively lenient in the case of big commercial banks.

If the P20 billion had been used instead to infuse capital to the 468 rural banks which had been providing financial services to farmers but were shut down after failing to meet the capital-adequacy ratio, then food sufficiency won’t be a problem today. That looks to us a sound argument for Congress to immediately pass the proposed measure.

If the news reports are accurate, President Arroyo will meet with Manuel Lopez, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) chairman and CEO, tomorrow in Bohol amid the raging controversy over high electricity rates.

Each of us would have a unique plan that would be aligned with our own personal financial goals.

Determine the reason why you want these goals. For whom do you intend to do this goal? Doing your financial goal is a responsibility and obligation that you owe to yourself and your family.

Most promdis love their home provinces and hometowns. They keep on longing to go back to their lupang tinubuan. Memories of childhood and early youth grow more beautiful and precious with the years.

Through the Looking Glass: Sideshows and spurned solutions

This sideshow starring a state pension fund and the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is not about lowering rates and instilling competent management. At least not if the standards imposed on Caesar’s wife were applied.

Coast-to-Coast: Power and rice; why Bello?

That reduced power rates, stable rice prices and, yes, increased government revenues are on top of the Arroyo administration’s agenda serves to underscore the fact that it is bent on resolving the real, hard issues affecting our people, unlike some legislators and their self-styled “pro-people” cohorts who cannot seem to accept that the nation has moved on and has had enough of their contrived “search for truth” crusade centered on the NBN-ZTE inquiry.

The Entrepreneur: Beating the oil crisis

I DISCUSSED in two previous columns the opportunities arising from the food crisis, particularly in developing agriculture as an engine of economic growth. I don’t know how many people have noticed it, but there’s a pleasant change going on in the culture of doing business.

Reflections from the Mirror: ‘Pari delicto’?

Before, it was a bold, “If you like it, you buy it!” Now it’s an entirely different tune, like they won’t give up the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) without a fight.