Despite the bad news there's also good news!

There is no doubt that there is a global recession, but should we fret or despair that it is affecting us in Cebu? I don’t think so. The whole trouble with today’s news reports both local and international, is that we’re getting a deluge of negative news, when there’s a lot of positive news out there! While the economy may not be that robust, it’s not really that bad. Hey guys! Our parents went through the Japanese occupation during World War II and had to leave their homes to flee to the mountains. Now those were really bad times. What could be worse than that?

Is Cebu now reeling from the effects of the global recession? We already know that many furniture factories based in Mandaue City have already begun a slowdown, phasing out and even shutting operations completely. This already happened last year. We can expect more to happen in the next few months.

One indicator of the global downsizing due to a slow market is the planned closure of the Intel plant in Calabarzon. This is not happening only in the US, but elsewhere in the world. The Philippines is a key player in this field and naturally we expect that the slowdown would trickle down to our workers in those technology plants.

We already know that the Mitsumi plant in Danao City, which is the 10th largest contract manufacturer of computer parts and accessories, would also be affected. At the height of its operations, they had close to 20,000 workers in Mitsumi. But the employment figures have been dropping steadily in the last few years and last year they laid off 2,000 workers and plans to lay off another 2,000 more workers, which is bad enough news already.

But as we’ve said, often we only see the negative things in life. We should be happy that Mitsumi hasn’t totally shut down its operations! Years back, I remember that they were planning to close their operations in Cebu, opting to move to better business climates in Vietnam. But that didn’t happen and at least they are still in operation.

We all know that the power situation in Cebu has been at a critical point due to low reserves, while the new power plants are still being constructed. However we do have Gov. Gwen F. Garcia who, like many of us, refuses to curse the darkness and instead lights up a candle. Today, at 10AM, Gov. Garcia will be signing a Memorandum of cooperation with the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) with the various Chambers of Commerce in Cebu, the Department of Energy (DoE), CEBECO 1, 2 & 3 and MECO and the Cebu Stakeholders Initial Embedded Genset owners on the Cebu Interruptible Load Shedding plan.

Bringing all these people with generators to be on call just in case there is a shortfall in our power supply for them to turn on their generating sets at certain critical times of the day would certainly address our critical power situation. That the Governor is bringing everyone together for this MOA reminds me of how Cebuanos responded to the Ormoc Flood. But this time, we are not going to wait for brownouts to plague our city. Rather we have become proactive in our planning to prevent this from happening. This is one very good news that our fellow Cebuanos should know and appreciate!

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Finally, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has asked government prosecutors to file criminal charges against ranking officials of the ill-fated rural banks belonging to the Legacy Group, after uncovering what was tantamount to fraud. The BSP sent a memo to Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales to look into the falsification of public and commercial documents. In one instance, a certain Emilio Aguinaldo IV (should be related to the famous Katipunero) conspired with Mr. Virgilio A. Odejar, a former President of the Rural Bank of Parañaque Inc. (RBPI) to defraud the bank of P679.4 million.

No doubt, this piece of news is of interest to the thousands of depositors who lost their life’s savings that they deposited in the 13 rural banks under the Legacy Group. But the big question is, how come that the BSP has filed a case against these people, but not against Mr. Celso de los Angeles, the man behind Legacy Group? This is what we’ve been warned about because apparently the name of Mr. de los Angeles doesn’t appear in the Rural Banks he purportedly owned.

This is why we’ve tasked BSP officials to be transparent about this mess and give us a report of all the officers involved in those ill-fated rural banks that went under last December. Then there’s that other rural bank that we are keenly interested in - The Rural Bank of Subangdaku (RBS). Until know we have no idea about that story of a fictitious loan, unless the BSP tells us the whole story as to why RBS collapsed!