Energy summit not a solution

A couple of leftist leaders were stupid and irresponsible to suggest that a simple re-imposition of price control on petroleum products would shield our people from the effect of the hundred dollar oil barrel. Where do they think we get our oil? I agree that the oil deregulation law deserves a good review but merely scrapping it and going back to the days of price control isn’t going to help us.

Even oil producing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia found out they cannot indefinitely shield their people from increasing oil prices in the world market. Both countries have been regularly increasing domestic oil prices even at a high political cost to their national leaders. The communist leaders of China are finding out pretty much the same thing.

The only way domestic markets can be protected from rising world oil prices is for government to subsidize the domestic price. In our case, we don’t even have enough tax money for education and health care. Even the proposal to give up EVAT on oil products already imposes a substantial sacrifice that means foregone social services like education and health care.

Of course we all know the leftist groups have another agenda and the more they get people riled up against government for whatever reason, the better for them. But they are playing a dangerous game by misinforming the public on the true nature of the hundred dollar oil barrel problem. No one can just point a finger at the oil companies and say they are to blame and must be punished by price control. Unfortunately, that’s what the leftist firebrands and some politicians are doing.

On the other hand, the leftists are also correct to say that the energy summit called by Ate Glue is likely to be useless. Summits called by Ate Glue have lost their credibility because she has used it once too often. Calling a summit is a way by which this administration makes it appear that it has done something. It is all part of her “photo op” approach to governance.

But in all fairness, this energy summit can be useful if the Energy department prepares well for it. It is about time all sectors of society get a sense of urgency with regard to our energy situation. At least during the last energy crunch, people knew they had the responsibility to use energy efficiently and there is an obvious government program that would help them do just that. Right now, it is too much business as usual… as if there isn’t even a problem at all. Asiong Aksaya is alive and well.

We have to get into our consciousness that the hundred dollar oil barrel is a problem not just because it impacts on inflation but also because we may not be able to afford it. Sure we have OFW dollars going out of our ears and we are not about to have a shortage of dollars to buy hundred dollar oil barrels any time soon. But let us not forget we also have to use those dollars to buy other very essential imports like rice, flour and capital goods. The world prices of rice and flour are also rising significantly, both with significant social impact.

Hopefully, this energy summit will help produce clear directions for the short term (like energy conservation, tax relief) and for the long term (bio fuels, etc.). It would be useful if that study the DOE is doing on the oil deregulation law would be ready for discussion in the summit. That law can certainly be fine tuned to respond to this era of the hundred dollar oil barrel.

We should not be afraid to plan for even draconian measures like rationing. What we need for the meantime are some very visible measures that would tell the public we are not living in normal times and there is indeed an energy crisis situation we all must help to deal with. Traffic management should take primary attention as one of the energy efficiency measures we can do right away. Those near empty out of line buses on EDSA should be impounded. Smoke belching betrays a badly maintained vehicle that wastes precious fuel and must therefore be impounded as well.

Schools that generate high volume of traffic like Ateneo, La Salle Greenhills, Miriam, etc. should be required to make their students take school buses instead. Government should expand the number of trains in the MRT and LRT systems to encourage more people to take public transport. Congress should study the possibility of imposing a ban on the importation of high powered cars. Actually, anything that goes beyond a two-liter engine ought to be banned because society cannot afford such cars, even if some individuals can.

We all have our feelings about this administration but this is one issue that calls on us to put everything aside and deal with it together. In fact, the world will have to unite as well in dealing with this issue. Up ahead is not just the two hundred dollar barrel of oil but worse, there may not be enough oil at any price. Oil is after all, a finite natural resource. All the oil there is had been created and no new oil is being made by Mother Nature. That’s really all there is to it and the earlier we realize that, the earlier we can make things easier for ourselves.

Just to round up this column, there are experts who say oil prices are bound to go down this year after briefly posting at the hundred dollars a barrel level. Oil prices will likely go down, these experts say, because a recession will set in and declining economies don’t use too much energy.

Organic food

I got this e-mail from PhilStar reader Ludwig Weber in reaction to our column about our agri sector’s ability to attract investments.

About your 04 JAN08 article... only one item solves everything… On paragraph 12, last line: “...opening up new markets here and abroad”.

If one talks about organic food, the local market is a veritable minefield. But the overseas market is an untapped oilfield.

I am a farmer (contract-grower, financier, overseer to three Bicol organic farm cooperatives). And not a marketing man, mind you. And there lies the problem. Of getting our produce to market. So what else is new?

I have gone to the DA, DTI, CITEM and to wherever else that I shall not bother to recall. The only help I seek is... for anyone inside of the agricultural racket to source foreign buyers for us.

I forwarded the reader’s e-mail to Agri USec Berna Romulo Puyat and this is her response:

As head of the export devpt team, I would be very_happy to meet with you and see how we can help you_look for markets abroad. We have no problems with_demand. Our main problem is supply.

CARP

Here’s another reaction to the same column on agrarian reform and farm investments from Henry S.

I read your column on the above subject with interest and fully agree that CARP has not achieved what it was supposed to achieve. It is naïve to believe that farm hands can be transformed into entrepreneurs overnight. CARP has just made the farmers poorer; they continue to rely on middlemen to finance their produce which they then sell at a pittance.

Assuming that the political will is not there to modify CARP, I thought that the creation of agro-industrial estates under PEZA and the DA is the way out to almost create a cooperative situation, a partnership between the farmers and the industrial company.

Given the Sumilao situation, this way out has been severely damaged by a government without political will.

I am at a loss to understand how poverty of the farmers can be addressed.

Admiral

There was a great admiral who won many battles. Whenever a battle was about to ensue, he asked his second in command to bring him his red shirt. He did this so that if he was injured, his men wouldn’t notice and would keep on fighting.

One day, someone shouted from the crow’s nest, “50 enemy ships on the horizon!” The admiral shouted to his second in command, “Bring me my brown pants!”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]