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.

There is a limit to harangues and public torturing on this issue, and we have reached that point. So if the critics insist in fixing the blame, not the solution to this and other pressing issues, then they should be exposed and made accountable for their deeds.

Which is why some quarters are at a loss why the Palace seems to suggest that touting ex-justice secretary Silvestre Bello III’s appointment as Cabinet secretary is a welcome move after the guy spent time in various senior positions with hardly anything to show for it, except that still-unexplained involvement in the celebrated “Nine Little Indians” caper.

There are better stories out of the Palace than this. But we will really have to deal with Bello and his capers soon. We are told that immediately after his designation, his “boys” have been calling up people signaling that they are back. Tsk. . . Tsk. . . .

Power-rate adjustment and the Epira

Meantime, it is well that President Arroyo has accepted the invitation of the Lopez family, led by Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) chairman and CEO Manuel “Manolo” Lopez, to discuss the controversy which has embroiled senior government officials, headed by Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president Winston Garcia, and the country’s largest power-distribution utility.

That meeting should finally put to rest allegations that the government is out to punish the Lopezes for their media affiliate’s seemingly unreconstructed harangues against the present administration and focus on the real issue at hand—the need to reduce power rates across-the-board.

Hopefully, this face-to-face encounter will also calm the waters and lead not only to reduced power rates soon but a fuller understanding by all concerned about the real, not skewed, issues bedeviling the power industry.

For, truth to tell, getting Meralco to clean its act is just one, though a big, part of the total solution to our worsening power situation. For one, the company will now have to explain why it continues to “pass on” a number of charges such as utility bills that other companies consider operating costs, and why its “system losses” still hover around the maximum 9.5 percent allowable by law after all these years.

It will also have to justify its procurement policy which critics claim is skewed in favor of the Lopez affiliates in a kind of “self-dealing” workout, to the detriment of consumers and other shareholders like the GSIS.

It will also have to open its books if only to show that it has paid for all the shares and assets which it took over after Edsa 1, and explain how properties such as Rockwell are carried in its accounts. It will also have to show that it is not overstaffed, or worse, is outsourcing work to other Lopez affiliates, to the detriment of the public and other stakeholders.

In a word, this latest public outcry should be taken by the Lopezes as a means to show once and for all that Meralco is not only being managed well, but that it has retained its soul as the country’s largest power-distribution utility. 

That openness, if we may call it such, to accountability should apply to the other big industry players such as the National Power Corp. (Napocor), National Transmission Corp. and Shell Gas and, of course, the industry regulator Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

It is the proper and responsible interplay of these entities in a well-developed and ethically responsive environment which will result in the long term in reduced and competitive power rates.

Napocor president Cyril del Callar, for example, will now have to show proof that he did not openly defy the rules in reportedly awarding a P956-million coal-supply contract to a three-month old company called Transpacific Consolidated Resources, whose paid-up capital is a princely P62,500.

He will also have to tell Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Teddy Casiño why he has been buying coal at $109/metric ton (MT) when others were said to have bought theirs at $64/MT only.

He will also have to belie persistent reports that he has been secretly meeting with his old mentor, ex-senator Sonny Osmeña, a known backer of the Cebu-based Aboitizes, not so much as to find ways to reduce rates but to exchange notes on, among others, Meralco’s operations.

Those meetings, if true, coupled with the bulldog determination of GSIS president Garcia to wager the P9 billion and counting pension funds of government employees already invested in the utility to “replace the Lopez management,” has only fueled rumors that reducing the power rates is just part of the bigger agenda.

Quite apart from these groups, it is the ERC and Congress which should now show proof that they have been true to their mandate as the guardian of consumers’ welfare.

After being shown all the deficiencies of the law and the seeming inutility of the regulators to effect meaningful changes in the power equation, it behooves the leaders of these institutions to come around and support Malacañang’s call for sustained and meaningful adjustments. They should not stop at the changing of the guards, even, if ever, that comes to pass in Meralco, but in insuring the Electric Power Industry Reform Act is amended to incorporate the more progressive notions for the sustained development of the power sector. 

If these changes push through and the EnerCon program gets into high gear, there is no reason why we cannot expect better and more affordable power in the years to come.

And now to the rice issue

The signing of a memorandum of agreement between the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the League of Provinces of the Philippines, whereby especially trained, local government unit-devolved agri-services personnel will be detailed with the DA for years 2008 to 2010, or what the Palace calls the “crash rice-sufficiency plan period,” augurs well for our efforts to attain a more comfortable level of rice production which can shield us from the vagaries of the global grains market.

This initiative, which I understand is just part of the total FIELDS program, meant to address long-standing problems in the rice and grains sectors, has been hailed by no less than the International Rice Research Institute’s Robert Zeigler, who intoned that the country has “. . . adopted technologies quite effectively and used them rather well. . . ,” and even by the Rome-based UN Fund for Agricultural Development’s Kevin Cleaver, who advised during an earlier visit to Manila that the rice problem “could be handled pretty well by the Philippines in the immediate and long term” with the measures put in place by the Arroyo administration.

Indeed, these initiatives have exempted us from being listed by the UN World Food Program among the group of 36 countries considered suffering from the “silent tsunami” of rising rice and food prices which will need assistance for being “food insecure.”

 As a recent The Economist magazine article noted, governments can provide basic technology: executing capital-intensive irrigation projects too large for poor individual farmers to undertake; or paying for basic science that helps produce high yielding seeds. Among others, these are what the FIELDS program hopes to achieve.  

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.