Today, as we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings and the ensuing “Global War on Terror” and as we rise up to face the challenges, the anguish and the anxiety that that event wreaked unto the world a decade ago, it maybe well to refocus our sights on the “next wars” we have to overcome. Not that the “war on terror” is over and out. Far from it.
We remain a fractious and highly vulnerable world. Just recently, a terrorist attack in India, just outside the High Court in New Delhi, killed 11 people and wounded 60 others. Quite apart from Afghanistan, Iraq and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, India and Pakistan have become the most “attractive” targets of terrorists of all kinds. We are, of course, talking here of the organized ones which was what the 9/11 attacks was all about. Remember, that attack which shook the world was a highly secretive and organized effort which was originally experimented from Manila in the late 1990s but which US authorities failed to work on despite our best efforts to warn them (they simply ignored our reports).
It will probably take time maybe never before another al-Qaeda type of organized operation will ever be mounted on American soil or in any other Nato country for that matter. But expect the loyalists of those leaders who have been on the US and its allies’ sights for sometime, i.e., Qaddafi, Assad and Saleh, to name just three, to be biding their time and looking for an opening. But terrorists will strike where they can, like in India or Pakistan where the partisans on both sides are ever on the ready. The world will also have to bear with the “lone wolf” attack like that Breivik one in Norway, which caused the death of at least 70 people. There will always be zealots in every community and they are liable to snap anytime for any reason, which makes it really difficult not only for the authorities but for whole communities and nations to prevent. Whether these kinds of attacks or the organized ones will now be harder to come by as a result of the world’s 9/11 experience remains to be seen. What matters is that as a result of that harrowing experience, we have become more alert, and possibly better prepared, if not to prevent, then at least to mitigate, the impact of such operations and, yes, more tolerant of divergent views and practices. We have also become more innovative and creative in our preparations, more open to others and more humane in the process.
Which is just as well. For quite apart from the continuing efforts to protect ourselves and our communities and make the world a better and safer place to be in, we should attempt to be even more proactive and mature in fighting the other wars, which in the ultimate analysis, impact heavily and may even be the very root cause of the terrorist threats that continue to hound us. I am talking here of the global economic malaise that has resulted in even more poverty in many places of the world, unemployment, broken families, dislocation and, generally, hopelessness among millions of people. That enveloping state of malaise and hopelessness will become even more acute as countries continue to ignore the impact of the rising costs, if not inaccessibility not just of food but of the very basic services needed for living—water and electricity. I have no doubt that quite apart from the decades-old war on poverty, the next wars, if we may call them that, will revolve around these two basic items—water and electricity—both of which impact on the poverty situation everywhere. Closer to home, we are already on the verge of another “people power,” this time around on the matter of the expensive, inaccessible and inadequte supply of these two basic goods. In the case of power, for example, we now have the highest rate in all of Asia, even higher than Japan’s. And, if we don’t watch out, we are about to get to the same state in the case of water.
Aquino’s power shortage
No less than Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras has acknowledged the looming power crisis two years from now by 2013 as he raised the possibility of the President doing a Ramos. Meaning, for all the assurances that he and his boss have been making after taking office, they are finally admitting that the country’s reserve, expected to be drawn mainly from coal-fired plants, will not be available anytime soon due to “permitting problems.” The other potential source, renewable energy, also faces the same hurdle as Almendras and his boys continue to tweedle with their thumbs how to make a go of the “feed-in-tariff” (FIT) issue that they have been tossing back and forth for months now. Some players are already suspecting that Almendras is being stymied by his previous association with the powerful Cebu-based Aboitiz family that is heavily invested in power, noting, for example, that the group has been very vocal about the “need to bid out” the allocations after many of the earlier filers have actually done their studies, gone through the permitting process and are about to lay the foundations for these. Talaga naman.
In any event, Almendras is now floating the idea of the President asking for “emergency powers” á la Ramos immediately after taking over from then- President Cory Aquino in 1992) to address this potentially crippling power situation. One remembers that in his haste because of the situation then, Ramos signed no less than 40 power- purchase agreements (PPAs) with favored independent power producers (IPPs) which resulted in higher power rates and, of course, highly disadvantageous contracts that consumers continue to pay up to this day. Of course, a lot of people made oodles and oodles of money pushing those IPPs, many of whom continue to be playing with the DOE and the government to this day. In fact, these same players were the ones who went all out promoting the controversial Epira which not only covered the Ramos era IPPs and other highly questionable deals but promoted an out-and-out privatization plan which left the consumers with no leeway at all to escape from the tight and expensive bear hugs of the denizens of the power industry. And this is what Almendras is now trying to promote, probably to again blindside the people from even pursuing the investigation on the calamituous impact of the Epira law.
Here’s what Almendras is now telling us a year after his takeover at DOE: “All of the energy projects are tied up. All coal-fired power plants have fuel- supply problems. What I will tell you is that I need power plants for base load by 2014 up to 2016. We don’t even have a liquefied natural-gas (LNG) terminal. Malampaya natural gas is fully utilized. Geothermal depends on whether I will find geothermal resources. Hydro also relies on finding sufficient hydro and such power plants take longer to build.” Need I say more except to ask: What have you been doing, anyway, for the past 14 months that you have been at the helm? Sayang!....
