Multi-level electrocution

In the blame game that they call the Meralco investigations, one thing I can state with certainty is that all the players are guilty! As a Christian I am tempted to chastise these players and challenge them by quoting a Bible verse: “He who is without sin cast the first stone”. But as consumers I’m almost certain we all have the right to stone them.

Power companies all over the country constantly run to the land of legal ground by citing laws and franchise that allow them to “legally” do things that would be considered in excess, abusive, or unfair. The laws, franchise or interpretations thereof are no longer “within the socially accepted norm intended for the public good”.

In the land where conflict of interest reigns, we find lawyers, law firms, and unofficial lobbyists working hand in hand with legislators and government regulators in order to insure the private and profit interest of corporations rather than public interest and the public good.

It is not uncommon to see how many laws and franchise have been written or crafted by law firms, passed on to lobbyists, “submitted to law maker/investors” which eventually become the legal ground of corporations to rape, pillage, or defraud the public or the country’s resources.

So let us not vent our anger exclusively on the power generators. A survey of the top 100 corporations in the Philippines as well as the largest consumer/service companies will reveal that many of them retain the services of the Top 3 to Top 20 law firms who in turn retain retired judges and justices and whose founders or “former” partners are serving in Congress.

Anyone who has ever tried to sue a bank, an airline, a hospital, or even a TV network would be hard pressed to find a top law firm willing to take the case much less win it. Their incestuous relationships hardly reflect professionalism, much less integrity. The Marcoses were accused of being “The Conjugal Dictatorship”, but they certainly pale to the prevailing “Commercial Polygamists”.

While Meralco and all the power companies in the Philippines MUST be investigated, it is high time for us to go beyond this politicized affair. The Meralco spin-doctors have done all of us a great favor by calling our attention to the questionable practices of oil companies, the Napocor, the Department of Finance, other power suppliers and power generators, and the Energy Regulatory Commission.

In effect, Meralco spin-doctors have turned into kamikaze pilots who have decided to take everyone down with them. So we are now confronted by the challenge to really investigate and prosecute the oil companies who are involved in smuggling, as a result the people at the Bureau of Customs overlooking the oil companies will also have to be investigated, fired or jailed. No less than President Arroyo knows about the extent of lost revenues for government, but the issue seems to have died or intentionally forgotten. Not even the PASG has twitched on the issue.

Meralco raised a very interesting point when it raised the issue of taxation. If government concern or GSIS concern is about lowering costs, then the government must share in the guilt as well as the responsibility. We have always stated that the Republic of the Philippines and all its brilliant tax experts and economists have just about wiped out business profitability in the country due to excessive taxation.

Even before any business can actually turn a profit, the republic has already profited by duties and taxes on raw materials we don’t have or can’t produce. The government is the first to profit on fuel, when the fuel is converted to power the government makes multi-level profits by way of multi level taxation. As in all industries there is a constant need for insurance and while Winston Garcia was so kind to point out a questionable transaction concerning Meralco’s Bahamas-based insurance firm, I bet no one has paid attention to the multi-level taxation on all forms of insurance transaction in the Philippines.

Someone once said that a government that tries to achieve progress by over taxation is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up by the handles. Given little returns for our tax payments, it is beginning to look like the government is the biggest multi-level profiteer and the biggest free loader.

Behind the excessive privilege and excessive taxes lurks the House of Representatives and its members (past and present) who are the most guilty in crafting laws that have given regulatory agencies unspecified powers to interpret or manipulate the governance and the profitability of electricity at the expense and hardship of the Filipino people. It is the members of Congress who passed all the tax laws and the franchise. Now Speaker Prospero Nograles has the golden opportunity not only to prove his leadership but also to correct serious errors and grave sins committed in the past. As you reform Congress, reform the legislations as well.

Ever since the “Meralco controversy” re-emerged again, thanks to Winston Garcia who seemed to have exited “the stage”, the public has discovered from testimony even more reasons to be angry. The previously ignored office for those temporarily retired from politics called the ERC turns out to be more of a processing house than a regulatory body. Again they claim that their actions are legal and simply a matter of interpretation and prerogative. As one official put it: “they sound like spokespersons for the electric company”.

The Arroyo administration and Meralco can continue in their dogfight and amuse or entertain us. But the real solutions to the entire power controversy can only be achieved through sincere legislative reform. The Meralco controversy is not about personalities, not about ownership, or about the Lopez family. It is about corporate abuse, it is about governmental indifference whose consequence now forces the administration against the wall, and it is not just about consumer hardship. It is about a vital industry that has selfishly promoted its business interest at the expense of the nation and our progress.

If the needed legislative reform do not come, if the corporate attitudes do not change, if we all do not come into agreement, then we will simply give others the more reason and opportunity to take away what we can still save for the better.