WEEKS ago, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte declared that he was not going to run for president. But strong clamor from his avid supporters to take a stab at higher office could make him change his mind.
If Duterte does make a 180-degree turn this week, it would be a four-cornered fight for the presidency, with Duterte joining Vice President Jejomar C. Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance, Sen. Grace Poe of Partido Pilipinas and former Interior Secretary Manuel A. Roxas of the Liberal Party (LP) in the fray.
Duterte’s emergence as a viable candidate for the highest elective post and strong showing in popularity surveys indicates a sea change in contemporary Philippine politics. Previous contenders for the presidency had come from national positions, mainly the office of the vice president, Senate, or the House of Representatives. Duterte’s strong suit—and, perhaps, the main reason he has gained stature as presidential timber—is his strong stance against crime, as he has made Davao City as one of the safest places in the world.
His track record in fighting crime appears to have made the citizenry in other parts of the country, particularly in Metro Manila—the seat of the government and the country’s financial and business hub—to sit up and take notice, so that now he is seen as the most likely candidate who could turn things around and make the entire country one of the safest in the world. But why do we need to stamp out criminality? The simple answer is that we need peace and order so we can proceed with economic development that would lift millions of Filipinos from grinding poverty.
Corruption, however, prevents the government from harnessing all resources to enhance economic growth and win the war against poverty. If roughly a fourth of the annual national budget ends up in the pockets of the corrupt, as estimated by the World Bank, then we should give equal weight to curbing corruption as much as to fighting crime.
That’s the very reason not a few people are now seriously pushing a Duterte-Cayetano team-up in 2016.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano has also emerged as a viable contender for higher political office because of his unrelenting campaign against corruption and staunch advocacy of economic issues, as exemplified in his “Presyo, Trabaho, Kita” campaign slogan in 2010. The promise of lower prices, decent jobs and adequate income will certainly resonate with ordinary Filipinos, especially those living from day-to-day.
A Duterte-Cayetano tandem will be a veritable double-barreled attack on crime and corruption that the citizenry demands at this time.
While they have their individual strengths, it’s the synergy that they bring to the political landscape that could make them prevail in the polling precincts next year.
Duterte’s “take-no-prisoners” stance against crime complements Cayetano’s equally unyielding stand against corruption.
The Davao mayor’s long experience in running the city on a day-to-day basis is in sync with Cayateno’s high-profile exposure as an anticorruption champion in the Senate in the last three years.
In terms of demographics, the tandem is likely to win the support of a broad section of the population. Duterte’s tough image and homespun wisdom might appeal more to older citizens, but Cayetano’s youthful dynamism will no doubt draw in the younger voters fed up with traditional politicians and empty rhetoric.
In terms of geography, the team-up is also ideal as Duterte could corner Mindanao and the Visayas votes and help Cayetano win votes there. Cayetano, who hails from Taguig City and also has roots in Bulacan and Pangasinan, could rely on mass support from vote-rich areas in Luzon. When he was running for the Senate in 2013, Cayetano made the rounds of the provinces and managed to win the support of transport groups, market vendors and farmers’ organizations and cooperatives with his economic program anchored on Presyo, Trabaho, Kita.
Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. had earlier been reported as having talked to Duterte to sound him out on the idea of a team-up. But it appears that Marcos is weighed down by heavy political baggage arising from his father’s declaration of martial law in 1972 and alleged human-rights violations during the period of strongman rule until 1986, and now wants to go alone as an independent vice-presidential candidate.
To make a long story short, with a strong leadership represented by the Duterte-Cayetano tandem, we may have a unique opportunity to finally break free from crime and corruption, the double-headed hydra that keeps the nation from achieving sustained economic advance and social progress in the years ahead.
‘Midnight order’ could mean higher electricity rates
Resigned Energy Secretary and now LP senatorial candidate Carlos Jericho L. Petilla leaves office with bad news for electricity consumers: they are likely to pay higher rates next year if the Competitive Selection Process (CSP) policy embodied in Department Circular (DC) 2015-06-0008, which he signed just days before he officially quit his job as Cabinet secretary.
Petilla’s “midnight order,” which took effect on June 30, requires distribution utilities (DUs) and electric cooperatives (EC) to source their power requirements only through a competitive bidding called the CSP, which would prohibit them from getting their electricity through individual or bilateral negotiations with generation companies (Gencos) through standard contracts, known as Power Supply Agreements (PSAs).
The Petilla order mandates the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to jointly formulate with the Department of Energy (DOE) the implementing guidelines. Apart from this, it directs the DUs and ECs to hire third-party consultants or auctioneers to conduct the CSP tenders for them.
Hence, the DOE and ERC will now determine the wholesale supply or energy requirements of each and every DU and EC, and the respective volumes that each firm needs to bid out via the CSP beyond their supply needs that, for now, are still covered by their existing PSAs.
Industry stakeholders, however, are up in arms against the Petilla order as they believe it actually goes against Electric Power Industry Reform Act, as the CSP is neither transparent nor a mechanism to stabilize or reduce electricity prices for the benefit of consumers.
CitizenWatch, an independent network of citizen-rights activists, believes the implementation of DC 2015-06-0008 would further burden “already overburdened consumers with additional power costs,” and will “never work in an environment where there are just a few Gencos.”
The same sentiment has been articulated by the party-list group Agham, which urges “total and unequivocal rejection of this flawed and anticonsumer circular” it said was issued without the benefit of prior public consultations and “has no legal leg to stand on.”
Industry players, for their part, assert that the CSP can work only if considered as a voluntary option in a mixed system that also includes bilateral negotiations and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) purchases. “Our view is it doesn’t promote the best interest of consumers,” Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) President Oscar Reyes has said. “It’s a nice concept, an attractive concept, but do it on a voluntary basis.” The most appropriate model for Meralco, he said, would be “a mix of bilateral, voluntary CSP and the WESM.”
What’s interesting for industry watchers is that among those backing CSP is the United States Agency for International Development, apart from American Gencos, like AES Corp. and GNPower Ltd. Co., both of which are already operating power facilities in Mindanao and Zambales, respectively. One other reason the CSP is deemed objectionable is that it is legally and administratively infirm as it encroaches on ERC’s jurisdiction and undermines its independence and mandated autonomy from the DOE as the industry’s regulatory agency.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.